Valentine's Day Fun for Petit Ones

Soren and I are heading to a little Valentine's party today at a neighbor's house, where we'll make our own tiny heart-shaped pizzas and enjoy cookies.  I offered to bring a few crafts to do, and since the kids are 3 and under, I came up with some ideas that will hopefully be exciting (and do-able) for the preschool set.

I picked up some Valentine's paper plates at Target (you could certainly use white ones or whatever you have on hand) and just put a line of white glue around the rim.  Then we glued pre-cut hearts all the way around the edge, and taped a length of yarn to the back.

While I'm not an advocate of pre-cutting supplies for kids' art projects, at their age, toddlers and preschoolers probably don't have the skills to cut out hearts just yet.  Though I am bringing plenty of extra paper for those who want to cut their own, or make something entirely different.  And it really didn't take long to cut out a bunch of hearts out of folded paper (great to do while watching a movie).

Hopefully we'll use the hearts to design our own heart animals too.  I can't wait to see what the kids come up with!

There will also be paper bags for them to decorate to put their Valentines in, and of course paper for them to design their own cards, if the attention spans don't wane by then.

I'm also bringing along coffee filters and tissue paper that I cut into circles (same size as the coffee filters), if anyone (moms included) wants to make a pretty bouquet.

I made these last year for Easter, the tutorial for which you can find HERE.

I anticipate that the kids might want to color the coffee filters with markers, then I (or another mom) can turn them into the flowers.

Lastly, I couldn't help myself, and made these cute lollipop flowers for the kids using scraps of leftover paper.

They're almost too cute to eat!

I imagine they'd be a hit in the classroom, in lieu of paper Valentines.  I made them by cutting a small (2-3") square (or approximate square) out of paper,

 then fold it corner to corner into a triangle, and then fold again into another triangle.

Cut out two half hearts from each side, like this:

 Using another slightly larger or smaller piece of paper, do the same thing.

Open up your flowers,

and poke a hole in the center of each flower with a toothpick.  Don't make it too big, or the lollipop will fall out.

Slide the smaller flower on first, then the larger one.  Voila!

I stuck mine into a styrofoam ball, then put it into a small flowerpot. The pops are easier to display and contain this way.  So cute!

Off to the party we go!  Any fun Valentine's plans in your weekend (no X-rated comments please, LOL!).