How to celebrate Valentine’s Day with your children

Enjoy this holiday of love by sharing these fun Valentine’s Day activities, crafts, games, and gift ideas.

Make fingerprint heart cookies. This is a great recipe for the little ones to help out! Use a prepared sugar cookie dough roll. Place the cookies on an ungreased baking sheet. Dip thumb or forefinger in egg mixture to generously coat in color. Press your finger on each cookie at an angle twice to make a heart shape. Sprinkle with red sprinkles and bake. Create a small bag with some colored cellophane and add some cookies. Tie with a special ribbon and card. Share these treats with your neighbors and friends.

Make a family photo book. Cut a cover from red craft paper and write “I love my family” at the top of the page. Cut a heart out of pink craft paper and decorate it with sparkly pens. Each family member creates a page for the family book. Have each family member add a photo (s) to their page and decorate. Laminate for added strength. Poke holes in the pages and tie them with a ribbon or string. Cut out a small heart and glue it to the end of the string. This makes a great coffee table book.

Create a Valentine’s Bookmark for the Mouse. Make this easy Valentine’s Day bookmark to gift someone special. Use a wooden stick and paint it red. Trace and cut one large and two small hearts out of red and pink craft paper. Glue small hearts on top of the large heart as ears. With a marker, draw eyes and whiskers on the face. Glue on a stick and add a conversation heart just below the face.

Play and learn with Valentines Conversation Hearts. Use a muffin pan and add colored circles to the bottom of each pan. Have the children sort the conversation hearts and fill them into the correct color cans. Let your child be the manager of the candy store and you be the customer who buys candy. Example: I would like to buy 3 pink candies and 2 green candies. Have the children count them and hand them to you. Add them up to see how many sweets you bought in total.

Stay home and have a family game night. Enjoy some quality family time and share some laughs with a game of “Candyland”.

Gifts from the heart. Make homemade Valentine’s cards to share with your classmates. Buy some lollipops and make your own lollipop cards. Find patterns and prints at http://www.kidssoup.com. Be sure to remember the special people your child can make Valentine’s for, like older neighbors.

Valentine’s Day is a wonderful celebration of love to share with friends and family. Make this Valentine’s Day a fun and sweet and unforgettable day.