4 Valentine’s Day Books and Activities for Little Learners
One of my favorite ways to incorporate holiday fun into our homeschool is by having a special holiday themed Fun Friday during each month.
I also really love using books as the foundation of our activities whenever possible!
So what I have for you here is a list of four Valentine’s Day books and activities to go along with each of them.
There are several ways you can utilize this plan:
- Choose 1 book and do the activities that go along with it for that day.
- Choose more than one book for a day and do the activities.
- Incorporate the books and activities into more than one day.
- Read one or more books and mix and match any of the activities to create your own plan!
Since I usually just dedicate one day to holiday celebrations, I will probably just choose one of these books for our fun day and do the activities that go along with it. Then I will just put the other books in their book tubs or lay them out that Fun Friday for them to read on their own (At least for my 8 and 5 year old!).
The Details
Bear Hugs by Karma Wilson
Bear Hugs is a cute and silly book filled with poems by different animal pairs.
It’s a great book to read if you want to work on identifying rhyming words or practice working on poem writing.
The poems vary in form and length and so it’s great for teaching beginning poetry!
Activities
Writing: Talk about poems and do some poem writing.
Crafts: Mail a Hug or Foam Heart Bear
Snacks: Grab your kiddos’ favorite Teddy Graham flavor and let them snack while sharing their poems!
Happy Valentine’s Day Mouse by Laura Numeroff
We love some Mouse in this house…especially my 4 year old! I think we own all of the books and we’ve watched all of the episodes on Amazon Prime. (Which are really cute if you’ve never seen them!)
In this story, Mouse goes through all of his friends, telling what he loves about them.
Activities
Writing: Using a writing journal or a plain piece of white paper, have your child write using the prompt: “I love ___________ because…”. Younger kids can just do that one sentence and draw a picture to go along with it. Older kids can finish the sentence and expand on it to create more of a paragraph.
Craft: Use this time to make Valentine’s for friends and family!
Snack: Make and eat Valentine M&M cookies! (Just use your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and sub Valentine M&M’s!)
Love, Splat by Rob Scotton
In the Valentine saga of the beloved Splat the Cat, Splat has made a special valentine for Kitten, but he’s nervous that she doesn’t like him because she isn’t always nice to him when she sees him.
In the end, he find outs what she really thinks!
Activities
Writing: For Preschool/K aged kids, have them say or write down as many words as they can that rhyme with “splat”. For elementary aged kids, have them think of words that rhyme with splat, too, but then challenge them to use some of the words to create a short, silly poem!
Craft: Splat Painting…this looks like a lot of fun!
Snack: Valentine’s Puppy Chow
The Berenstain Bears’ Valentine Love Bug by Mike Berenstain
I’ve been reading Berenstain Bear books since I was a kid, so it’s always a joy when I can whip one out to read to my own kids!
In this one, Sister Bear gets asked to be the flower girl at a Valentine’s Day wedding, but she gets a little out of hand in the planning.
Activities
Writing: Make a list of what love is. You could use 1 Corinthians 13 or discuss what love can look like when we show it to others.
Craft: Make cute little love bugs!
Snack: Valentine Fruit Wands
Other Activities
I included three extra activities that could be added to any book you’re doing. You could also only read the books and do these fun extras…it’s totally up to you! 🙂
Water Beads
If you’re not familiar with water beads, they have a been a big hit in our house! My eight year old still likes to mess around in them for a little bit. I often make a good amount of them and put them in a large clear plastic tub. This assures there’s plenty of room for moving the beads around without them falling out all over the place.
For Valentine’s Day I thought it would be fun to add a toy tea set to the beads and let them have a water bead tea party (especially if you have girls like I do!). If that doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, though,(see what I did there, hehe), then you could add a variety of heart cookie cutters for them to play around with.
I know it sounds simple, but you’ll be amazed how long your littles spend messing around with these little things!
Science Experiment
This Floating Dry Erase Marker Science Experiment is definitely one of the activities we are going to do! I’ve never seen this before, and I’m looking forward to doing it with my girls.
The best part is that it looks really easy to pull together, too!
There you have it! Four options for some book inspired Valentine fun in your homeschool, on the weekend, or for Valentine’s Day!
What is your favorite Valentine’s Day book? I always love hearing about new books! Let me know in the comments below!
Also, if you love themed learning, make sure to check out the other thematic units I’ve shared!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
