Celebrating Valentine's Day at preschool

Valentine's Day is all about celebrating love. Preschools can introduce the topic of love and Valentine's celebrations in an inclusive way that talks about all the kinds of love we have in our life, including parents, carers from the child care centre and peers. 

Cards for class mates and carers

Rather than placing pressure on busy working parents to buy or create Valentine's cards for the whole class, you can do some inclusive activities in class where everyone gets to make a card for a secret (and randomly selected) Valentine. Potato print of hearts, Xs and Os can make a cute and simple card that any age group could manage and can be enhanced with glitter for the children who like extra sparkle. The kids can write or get the carer to help write one thing they like about the card recipient. 

By ensuring that all children make a Valentine, everyone gets at least one Valentine and no one gets left out of the celebrations. 

Flowers for parents and carers

As the kids have a range of different care situations you can keep things simple by asking them to make a bunch of flowers for everyone in their family. They can thread paper petals made from scraps of craft paper, old gift wrap or even catalogues onto pipe cleaners. This lets the kids use some creativity as well as letting you discuss reusing and recycling items to create new gifts. 

Heart cookies

Another fun activity is to make some heart cookies to share with each other at morning tea. You can make a simple cookie recipe with 2 cup of flour, 1 cup of butter, 1 egg, 1/2 cup of white sugar and a splash of vanilla extract. Cookie cutters can be used to stamp out love heart cookies which you can decorate with cake decorations or dried fruit for extra flavour. The cookies cook for 15 minutes at 180 degrees C, giving you just enough time to clean up before they make it out of the oven. You can also make some extras to send home as additional gifts. 

By focusing on the important aspects of Valentine's Day, such as letting the special people in your life know how much you love them, can be a great opportunity to talk about relationships with small children. By focusing on the true meaning of the day you can incorporate fun and educational activities into Valentine's Day at preschool.