Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch by Eileen Spinelli, was such an endearing story to read for the week of Valentine's Day. Poor Mr. Hatch is a very lonely man. He has the same routine, day in and day out. Until, he receives a valentine in the mail with a small slip of paper saying, "Somebody loves you". Life changes from then on. He starts wearing a tie, putting on aftershave, and talking to people he never talked with before! Eventually, he forgets all about the valentine and is just happy helping people out. Then, he receives a knock on the door from the postman. It turns out, the valentine was delivered to the wrong address. Mr. Hatch is sad and goes back to his old ways. The people of the town figure out why Mr. Hatch is so blue and surprise him with a big banner that says Everybody Loves Mr. Hatch!
We started the week off with making our own valentine box...old school style! Shoe boxes, anyone? The boys cut out hearts and used stickers to decorate. Throughout the week, they made as many valentines as they wanted for whomever they wanted!
Next, we made some really fun chocolate play-doh. The recipe can be found here, along with many other great dough recipes. It was very simple to make and smelled good enough to eat. "C" thought it smelled just like fresh brownies from the oven. As suggested on the other website, I purchased some cheap candy boxes for them to use to make their own "chocolate candy". I also gave them different sized heart cookie cutters:
***A warning about the dough! If you have dogs, make sure this is put away where they can not get into it and all scraps are cleaned up. Let's just say, we woke up to lots of doggy accidents that took about 24 hours to pass. Yikes! Chocolate is toxic to dogs and lots of salt=lots of drinking water and a really bad belly ache. No fun for anyone. So, protect your pooch if you make any of this! ***
What's a valentine week without conversation hearts? I found these great math printable's (from 123child.com) to sort/estimate/count hearts.
Our Bible verse this week was Psalm 119:11. I'll elaborate on our Bible activities in my next post. But, we made these:
Finally, on Valentine's Day we had our big party! As a fine motor activity, the boys strung hearts to use as a decoration:
I made a valentine Memory game by placing sets of stickers on index cards:
Some other great books that we read this week were:
-Valentine's Day Is, by Gail Gibbons
-Max's Valentine, by Rosemary Wells
-Snowy Valentine, by David Petersen
-Plant a Kiss, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
- Too Many Valentines, by Margaret McNamara
We started the week off with making our own valentine box...old school style! Shoe boxes, anyone? The boys cut out hearts and used stickers to decorate. Throughout the week, they made as many valentines as they wanted for whomever they wanted!
Next, we made some really fun chocolate play-doh. The recipe can be found here, along with many other great dough recipes. It was very simple to make and smelled good enough to eat. "C" thought it smelled just like fresh brownies from the oven. As suggested on the other website, I purchased some cheap candy boxes for them to use to make their own "chocolate candy". I also gave them different sized heart cookie cutters:
***A warning about the dough! If you have dogs, make sure this is put away where they can not get into it and all scraps are cleaned up. Let's just say, we woke up to lots of doggy accidents that took about 24 hours to pass. Yikes! Chocolate is toxic to dogs and lots of salt=lots of drinking water and a really bad belly ache. No fun for anyone. So, protect your pooch if you make any of this! ***
What's a valentine week without conversation hearts? I found these great math printable's (from 123child.com) to sort/estimate/count hearts.
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| Baby "J" watching "B" sort! |
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| That was one big bag of hearts! |
Our Bible verse this week was Psalm 119:11. I'll elaborate on our Bible activities in my next post. But, we made these:
Finally, on Valentine's Day we had our big party! As a fine motor activity, the boys strung hearts to use as a decoration:
I made a valentine Memory game by placing sets of stickers on index cards:
For lunch, they had pink milk, heart PB & J sandwiches, heart jello-jigglers, and pink yogurt.
Then, they each got a cupcake to decorate and devour! Afterward, we opened up the valentine box and passed out all the valentines.
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| Baby "J" enjoying her valentine. |
-Valentine's Day Is, by Gail Gibbons
-Max's Valentine, by Rosemary Wells
-Snowy Valentine, by David Petersen
-Plant a Kiss, by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
- Too Many Valentines, by Margaret McNamara
How much fun did you have?! I love everything in this post. I'm really bad at celebrating any festivals or special day. They seem to come up quicker than I can prepare! I love the Valentine box-we LOVE shoe boxes in our house!!
ReplyDeleteThanks! The shoe box brought back lots of fun memories. They were so excited to open it up and see if they had received any valentines. I think my weeks before or after holidays lack because I tend to focus on the upcoming holiday too much and not give attention to the other weeks. If only there was more time in the day!
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