Valentine's Day crafts for toddlers

Over the years I've shared many Valentine's Day craft posts on the blog, and although my children are now getting a bit too old to indulge me with some seasonal crafting, I'm still proud of the crafts that we've worked on over the years. So with Valentine's Day approaching once again I thought I'd share some of the toddler and pre-schooler Valentine's Day crafts that we enjoyed doing together.

Stock up on red paint and cardboard, then click on the links below to find the details of each craft!

Valentine's Day toilet roll tube gift boxes

These simple gift boxes are so easy to make. All you need is a selection of cardboard tubes which you need to paint bright red or pink, then cut heart shaped pieces of red card to form the base. Glue on googly eyes and scraps of pink and red tissue paper and card. I also used a heart punch to make simple heart shapes. Stuff with shredded paper and fill with small sweets and chocolates.

Tissue paper Valentine's Day photo frames

These photo frames are fun for even the youngest children to make. Cut out the shape from thick cardboard, then coat in glue and stick down bits of torn coloured tissue paper. You can then embellish with buttons, beads or paper cut outs.

Valentine's Day keepsake bookmarks

To make these sturdy bookmarks all you need is a strip of coloured cardboard and some heart cutouts from paper, I used a heart punch. They are laminated and then a matching ribbon is threaded through the hole at the bottom. We wrote personalised messages on the back and gave them as gifts, and although we made them a couple of years ago they are still going strong!

Heart sun catchers

These sun catchers can even be made by very young children. They are made using clear sticky backed plastic, which is really easy for young toddlers to use in crafts as there is no mess with glue. They just need to fill the outline with pieces of torn coloured tissue paper, then you can apply another piece of the clear plastic to make a neat finish.

Valentine's themed jewellery box

Young children love having little boxes that they can use to store their precious bits and pieces! My daughter and I decorated this box with a Valentine's Day theme by painting it red and then adding heart themed stickers and embellishments. It's still in use in her room today!

Hama bead heart bunting

These Hama bead hearts are really simple to make using the small Hama bead heart pegboard, and they make a lovely set of bunting when strung together on some narrow ribbon.

I hope that you found something to keep you and your toddler busy!

If you have slightly older children that enjoy using Hama beads, you might also like my round up of Valentine's Day themed Hama bead crafts. 

Ad - Book Review - Easy Paper Projects by Maggy Woodley

I received a copy of this book in exchange for review, post contains Amazon Affiliate links.

I've been a big fan of Red Ted Art for a long time, so I was delighted to be asked to take a look at Maggy Woodley's new book - Easy Paper Projects. This brilliant book is packed with 60 different crafts that children can wear, gift, use and admire.

The projects in the book are designed to be worked on by children independently, using a small range of materials which are easily found around the home - for example coloured paper and card and basic office supplies like pens, scissors and glue. 

Mia is 8 and loves crafting, and she's now at the age when she's happy to work on something by herself. I gave her the book to have a browse, and she immediately spotted several crafts that she wanted to try out straight away. She loves making things that feature cute animals, and decided that her first project would be a "Hug a Book" Bookmark. 

I really liked that the way the book is bound means that you can open it flat to see the pages clearly while crafting, without damaging it. A simple thing maybe, but it really makes it easy to work on the projects. The crafts are grouped by theme, for example seasonal crafts like Halloween and Christmas, and other topics like wearable crafts and cards.

Each page is clearly laid out, with a photo of the finished product and plenty of step by step instructions and photos. Mia worked mainly from the photos, which gave her a clear image of the different pieces that she needed to cut from coloured paper and assemble.

She was so proud of her finished panda, created entirely by herself with no help - she even cleared up after herself when she was finished!

Harry aged 10 was also really interested in the book. He enjoys crafts that have a purpose and do something, so he had a lot of fun making a simple Helicopter using just paper and paperclips. He loved watching it fly down from the top floor of the house, and he worked out how to tweak his design to make it fly perfectly! 

I particularly love all the themed crafts in the book, and I'll definitely be turning to it in the run up to Christmas. There are lots of really sweet ideas which would make lovely decorations and gifts.

If you have crafty children I'd definitely recommend this book. The projects are great for children to work on by themselves and create a finished product that they can be proud of. They'll love looking through and choosing which projects to try, and you'll see their imagination fly as they adapt the crafts to suit their own interests and tastes.

How to make a nature postcard

This guest post is from Becky Goddard-Hill, co-author of Create Your Own Happy (affiliate link) - a happiness boosting activity book for 7-12 year olds and their families. All the activities are based on scientific findings that explain why doing them will create happiness.

 

Making a ‘nature photograph’ is a great way to tell the story of an outdoor adventure, and bring nature inside your home. This is a really simple activity and suits kids (or grown-ups of any age) It can be done by yourself or in a group and combines a little nature hunt with a beautiful craft.

 What you need: 

A postcard sized piece of coloured card

Double sided sticky tape

A forest, wood, park, garden or anywhere nature is growing.

How you make it: 

Put a strip of double-sided sticky tape across the middle of one side of your piece of card and take it out with you for a nature walk.

Pick things up as you go and stick them on your card. Try looking for different colours, textures, shapes and sizes, from tiny seeds to bits of bark, leaves and small flowers.

Only pick up fallen things as we don’t want to disturb growing things.

You can arrange them on the card to make an interesting picture or pattern.

You should now have a beautiful ‘nature photograph’ that you can hang in your home or seal with sticky back plastic and send to a friend.

Why nature makes you happy 

Here are 2 amazing bits of research that show us how being out in nature can make us happier and healthier

When a group of scientists at the University of Chicago tracked people’s happiness for 17 years, they found the people were happiest when they were living near trees. Pennsylvania hospital patients with a window with a tree view went home on average a day earlier than people with no view.

Japanese researchers found that a one-day trip to a park can boost our ‘natural killer’ white blood cells and proteins that help to fight off illness for at least seven days afterwards

You really create your own happy by getting out in nature. This will make you healthy AND happy and you will have a beautiful nature photograph too!

This post contains an Amazon affiliate link.

Some Autumn activities from Twinkl Teaching Resources

Harry brings home a few bits of homework every week but Mia doesn't have any apart from her reading, and despite me assuring her that she has many years of homework ahead of her, she's always asking for something that she can do while Harry gets on with his.

With Autumn most definitely in the air, I had a look at the Twinkl website for some Autumn themed resources that would be suitable for her as she begins her schooling in Reception.

At our recent parents evening her teacher suggested that she needs a bit of help with number recognition, so I printed out a set of these Autumn Leaf Numbers (free download). They are A4 sized, but I printed them at 50% and laminated them to make smaller number leaves. To begin with we just used the numbers 0 - 10 and we played various games with them - I hid them around the living room and asked her to name each number in turn as she brought it to me, we put them in the right order and I took away numbers from small sequences and asked her which one was missing.

I think it really helped her to have something tactile to hold and play with! When we've finished playing I'm going to stick them up in her bedroom so we can look at them together while she's getting ready and I'm brushing her hair.

While I had the laminator out, I also laminated each child an Autumn Tree Playdough Mat (Twinkl subscriber resource). Both children love play dough and I really love the Twinkl range of play dough mats, making specific shapes is great for their fine motor skills and finger muscles, especially making the little leaves. Harry found a piece of textured Lego that was the perfect size and shape to make the veins on the leaves, and he spent ages on this.

Another thing that we need to work on with Mia is her pencil grip. Although she does lots of colouring, drawing and writing, she doesn't hold her pencil properly and so it's something that we need to practice. Activities like this Autumn Shadow Matching Worksheet (Twinkl subscriber resource) are great for her because they are quick, simple and fun. She was so pleased with herself when she correctly matched the shapes.

We also practiced her cutting skills with an Autumn Leaf Sequencing Worksheet (Twinkl subscriber resource). She found it a little challenging to work out which leaf shape should come next so she just chose her favourite one to stick in the box! Both children then had a go at some Symmetrical Leaf Drawing Templates (free download) which require them to complete the second half of a leaf shape and then colour it in, and even Mia managed a good go at this.

I really do love Twinkl resources, it's great to be able to print out a couple of things during the day for the children to get on with after school and there are so many different themes that I can always find something that will interest them or that fits in with the topics that they are learning about at school.

I have been given a Premium subscription to Twinkl but I am under no obligation to write about them, I just like to share their resources because I think they are brilliant!

Halloween Ice Block Excavation activity

If you are looking for some spooky sensory play ideas for children, this Halloween ice block excavation activity is really fun. It just takes a bit of easy set up in advance, and will keep small children occupied for ages as they try to release all the Halloween bits and pieces!

You need:

For the ice block

A plastic container (I used an old ice cream tub) and freezer space
Water, food colouring (I used gel food colouring for a stronger colour)
A collection of little Halloween themed toys and decorations
Glitter and sequins

For the excavation

Tools (we used tools from the dinosaur excavation kit, you could also use plastic and metal cutlery, and plastic droppers and syringes if you have them)
Things that the children suggest might melt the ice - I gave them a bowl of salt and a bowl of hot water.

The ice block needs to be prepared a day or so in advance, and I made it over the course of a day. First I put a couple of centimetres of water into the bottom of the tub and let it freeze, then I added a further three layers, each filled with a handful of different items. I also added in food colouring and plenty of glitter, and I let each layer freeze before adding the next one. This way everything doesn't sink to the bottom of the ice block while it freezes.

Then I put it out for them to have a go at. First we used a large tray underneath, but as they added more and more hot water it was getting messier, so we ended up with it in a washing up bowl. Note to self - do this again in the summer when it can all be done outside!

I also gave each child a bowl where they could collect the things that they had excavated, fortunately they worked really well together and didn't argue over what they wanted to reach. The hot water proved to be the most effective way of getting through the ice, and when they started to get a bit frustrated I simply boiled the kettle and poured it over the block for them to make it easier.

We had a lot of fun with this, definitely something we'll be doing again. In fact it made a good threat - if you don't tidy up your toys I'll freeze them and you'll have to dig them out! I'd also like to extend the activity to make it a bit more scientific - perhaps with a wider range of materials that might melt the ice for them to experiment with that we could discuss beforehand.

Many of the little Halloween bits and pieces were recycled from our Halloween sensory tub, another great Halloween activity for little ones. Some other toddler friendly Halloween crafts that we have enjoyed were our super simple Halloween window decorations and our make a monster busy bag kit. Finally if you are hosting a Halloween party for young children you might like some of the ideas in my post about Halloween party ideas for small children.

Shopping toys for young children

Last week it was Mia's birthday, and we were quite pleased with a few of the presents that we found for her so I thought that I'd share them. She has been interested in playing shops for quite some time, and I'm finding that it's a great way to start teaching her a bit of number recognition as well as indulging her love for role play.

Mia had been talking about having a shopping trolley for some time, but all the ones that we'd seen were aimed at younger toddlers, quite large and clunky in bright plastic colours. She was also adamant that it had to have a seat for her dolly. So Ram found her this fab realistic little toy Waitrose shopping trolley in John Lewis. Her dollies fit in comfortably, it has a nice padded handle, and there is plenty of space in the trolley as well as space underneath for a shopping basket.

It's great because it's not too large, it looks good, and because it's quite subdued in colour it doesn't stick out too much when it's stored in the corner of the room. It cost £18 which I thought was quite reasonable for a sturdy, well made toy.

John Lewis sell nice baskets of groceries too, but we preferred a much cheaper one that we found on Amazon, at only £5 I think it was a bargain - Child's Shopping Basket. It came packed with plenty of play food inside and it's quite small, which means that it fits on the shelf underneath the trolley and Mia can carry it around easily. Some of the packets have barcodes on them which Mia enjoys placing against her till to 'scan' them like she does when I use the self-service till at the supermarket. The boxes are perhaps a little flimsy for very little ones to play with, but I think that ours are at the age now where they will look after them better.

We've never had any kind of toy till for the children, but I've always known it was something that they'd both love, so we spent a bit of time looking for a nice one. We wanted one that was durable and long lasting, and preferably a bit more grown up than the basic bright plastic toys aimed at younger toddlers. It's quite difficult to find one that resembles the type of tills that are actually used in supermarkets, but in the end we opted for the Calculator Cash Register by Learning Resources.

A big bonus is that it is solar powered so it doesn't need any batteries, and it has a lovely drawer for the money underneath which is easy to open and close with the press of a button and makes a satisfying 'ding'. The till beeps when you press a button and when you insert the credit card, and it's also a fully functioning calculator. The till comes with a full set of play money, both coins and notes (UK denominations) as well as a play credit card. At just over £25 it's a little pricier than some of the other toy tills on the market, but I'm hoping that we'll get our money's worth from it. I've noticed that even though Mia has not had it long she's already starting to recognise her numbers, something that I've been trying to teach her for a while and not found a way to keep her interested. The large flat area on the left is great to press the food boxes up against and use as a scanner.

Finally when you are shopping you need somewhere to put your money, and I love these little purses that my Mum bought for the children a little while ago. I've no idea where they are from I'm afraid, but they are so sweet!

With perfect timing, last week I received a copy of Let's Go Shopping Peppa to review. The book is all about Peppa's trip to the supermarket when Peppa and her family need something tasty for lunch. At the supermarket, Peppa finds everything on Mummy Pig's shopping list, but when they get to the checkout something extra has appeared in their trolley..! I really like this particular story because the scenario of going shopping is something that is familiar to all little ones, even if perhaps in reality they don't all love it as much as Peppa and George do! Mia watches a lot of Peppa Pig, so this book was a big hit, we loved reading it together and because she has seen the corresponding television episode several times she knew what was going to happen and enjoyed telling me all about it. A lovely companion gift!

We've set up a little shop in the corner of the living room and I can see many days ahead of playing toy shops. Mia loved helping me to make the shop (she built the little walls herself out of her coloured blocks) and she's already learned a few tricks of the trade, like placing a few little toys by the till to tempt the buyer, and then trying to sell me something extra while I'm paying for my shopping!

I think that our shopping role play set up is pretty well sorted now!

We received the Let's Go Shopping Peppa book to review, all the other bits we bought ourselves. Amazon links are affiliate.

Gardening Tuff Spot sensory play

Recently, Emma from Adventures and Play invited me to join in with her Tuff Spot A-Z Challenge. During March and April 2015, every weekday a blogger shared a blog post on either their own site or as a guest blog on the Adventures of Adam featuring sensory play based around a different letter of the alphabet. If you're not familiar with Tuff Spots here's an example -Tuff Spot (affiliate link) - it's basically a large mixing tray which you can use for all sorts of messy play and activities.

For our Tuff Spot play I chose G for Gardening. Of course, indoor gardening play isn't a substitute for real gardening, but while it's still too early in the season to start actual planting outdoors, we've been doing the next best thing!

I'm bending the rules of the challenge a little bit, as we don't actually have a real Tuff Spot. Instead, for our large scale sensory play I use a big tray, which is the lid from our outdoor sand and water table. It has a nice rim around the edge to keep everything reasonably contained, and it's the perfect shape for two children to use at once. I usually place it on the floor on top of an old table cloth, or else I have an old shower curtain that I use if we are playing with wet materials. You can also see it in action as Dinosaur Island.

The base material for our sensory play was cheap rice which I dyed black. It's very easy to dye rice, just mix it all up with some food colouring and leave to dry for a very short while. Dyed rice keeps for years and you can always reuse it - even if lots of different colours get mixed together the children don't mind at all!

One thing I've learned about sensory play is how much little children enjoy spooning and mixing different materials. So I provided plenty of plant pots for them to fill. There's a little terracotta one (obviously keep breakable ones for older children to use!), a few plastic ones and lots of new cardboard seedling pots. I put in a couple of our child-sized garden tools, and I also added some spoons for easier filling. I also added some seed markers and some different sizes of coloured pom poms.

Then I gathered together some old pumpkin seeds still going strong from my Halloween sensory tub and made some little seed packets to present them in. For the seed packets I used this fab printable from Twinkl - Create your own Seed Packets (free download). There are several different packets to choose from, and they have a blank front so you can add your own pictures. I found some pumpkin pictures in this Twinkl resource Editable Halloween Pumpkins (free download), and I printed off a couple of pumpkins to glue to the front of the seed packet.

Finally I once again turned to Twinkl to make some simple cards to use for matching game. I created this resource myself using the Twinkl Create function which is available to Premium users. I chose a selection of garden themed pictures, printed them out to make pairs and laminated them. 

I used the cards with Mia to play a memory matching game, and we hid them in the rice to hunt for pairs which she really enjoyed. 

Both children were so excited to see the gardening play all set up, and it reminded me that I should do this sort of play much more often! They both dug straight in, quite literally, and were soon completely absorbed. 

Harry was very interested in the seed packets and he took his play very seriously, filling up his plant pot and planting his pumpkin seeds. 

He wanted to know how we would remember what had been planted, so I gave him a pen to write the names of the plants on the seed markers. A great way to sneak in some writing practice, and his writing was so neat that he'll definitely be helping me when it comes to writing out the real ones!

On the other hand, Mia's first reaction upon seeing the cardboard plant pots was 'ice creams'! She busied herself with filling the pots up with the rice and popping a pom pom on top to make ice cream cones. Perhaps not quite the play that I had imagined, but I loved seeing her little thought processes at work and she had such fun! She also caught on that the pom poms could represent flowers that had grown, and was busy filling up flower pots. She came home this week from nursery with a real bulb planted in a flower pot and is most annoyed that it hasn't started growing yet, so at least this was some instant planting gratification for her!

I must admit that I had worried that at 6 Harry was getting a bit old for sensory play, but I was wrong. Both children played beautifully together for ages, even though they tended to play their own games independently with the shared materials! They both sat their narrating their own play, yet enjoying the other's company. 

Simple Diwali crafts for young children - round up post

Diwali is also known as the Festival of Light, and it is celebrated all over the world as one of the largest and most important festivals for Hindus.

I've come up with several Diwali crafts and activities for my children over the last few years, so I'm grouping them all together in this Diwali round up post so that they are all easy to find. Many of these crafts are particularly suitable for younger children.

My most popular craft is my Salt Dough Diwas. One year they were even featured in "Yours" magazine, which I was very excited about! They are really easy to make, and when they are painted and decorated with sequins they are so bright and cheerful. Ours come out now year after year and are still looking as good as the day that we made them.

I first discovered Hama beads around Diwali one year, and now of course they are a regular feature on my blog! I used the large and small circle pegboards to come up with a variety of different Rangoli designs. The small Hama bead Rangoli designs make lovely coasters for a Diwali celebration, or as simple decorations stuck or strung around the room.

The large Hama bead Rangoli designs were also a lot of fun to make, and make nice table mats or standalone decorations. The circle Hama bead pegboard is really versatile, and with the larger board you can make some really complex designs. They look fab in the centre of the table for a Diwali meal.

We've also made some simple Rangoli using dyed rice.These were a bit more fiddly, but looked good and the children had a lot of fun making them. Colouring the rice is really easy and it's fun for the children to get involved.

I also tried a different way of making Rangoli, this time Rangoli using dyed salt for a finer texture, and using my Cricut mini to cut out templates for the different areas. I ran them through the laminator to make them nice and sturdy, and they look great stuck on the window.

We have also put together some really simple Diwali cards which worked very well using some printable colouring pages, and I'll be using this idea again this year. There are lots of different pictures to colour out there and many of them come from the Diwali story so are a great starting point for telling the story.

Finally there are all sorts of sweet treats that you can bake for Diwali. We tried our hand at some Burfi sweets which are very easy to make and use just three ingredients.

If you are teaching your young children about Diwali, here are some books that they might enjoy:

The Best Diwali Ever (affiliate link) - A heart warming picture book about Diwali, siblings and how very special this celebration can be.

Diwali colouring book for kids (affiliate link) - A simple coloring book for young children, suitable for ages 2-5. Contains all sorts of things to colour including lamps, fireworks, candles, lanterns, food & rangoli patterns.

First Festivals: Diwali (affiliate link) - Featuring simple text, gorgeous illustrations and satisfying lift-the-flaps, this book explores common Diwali traditions and helps young children understand the importance of this special holiday.

Mr Men and Little Miss Happy Diwali (affiliate link) - The five-day festival of lights is celebrated by millions of people across the world and the Mr Men and Little Miss can't wait to join in. They're busy cleaning their homes, creating Rangolis, lighting lamps and enjoying all the festivities, including large feasts that Mr Greedy is particularly looking forward to. It’s going to be a busy five days of light and laughter!

We have several years yet of Diwali crafting ahead of us, and so I'll be updating this post with all our new ideas. I also have a huge Pinterest board filled with wonderful Diwali crafts and activities from around the web, do pop over and visit!

Follow Jennifer Jain's board Diwali Crafts and Activities on Pinterest.