I. Love. Valentine’s Day. After the Christmas festivities are over and the bitterness of Winter weather sets in, I LOVE having such a bright holiday to celebrate as we wait for Spring! So when it comes to February, we go ALL out – including activities in our homeschool time! This Valentine’s Day Preschool theme is packed with Math, Literacy and Fine Motors practice PLUS adorable little arctic friends!
Whether you’re teaching in the classroom or at home, you’ll love how easy it is to bring this festive theme to life without the overwhelm of planning it all yourself. Below you’ll find tons of activities and tips!
Table of Contents – CLICK to jump ahead!
Valentine’s Day Theme Sensory Bin
One of the easiest ways to add excitement and hands-on learning to your preschool week is with a themed sensory bin. So many of the activities in our Valentine’s Day Preschool pack incorporate a sensory bin, so it’s best to knock out the preparation early on! Our Valentine’s Day sensory bin is always a hit—it’s simple to put together and offers tons of playful learning opportunities! Here’s how I like to set ours up!
FIRST, gather your materials. I like to use a plastic storage bin with a lid so I can cover and store the bin once it’s prepared. Choose your filler, like the dry white beans we use in ours. Something about the beans really makes all the colors in our Valentine’s Day activities POP and gives children a very unique texture to experience. Once you’ve chosen your filler, fill your storage bin as much as you feel comfortable with (knowing each individual child can handle working with different amounts of materials).
NEXT, grab some extra Valentine’s Day themed items like plastic hearts and gems, puffy stickers, mini erasers, colorful pompoms, etc. These items make the perfect backdrop for the printable items in our preschool Valentine’s Day activities! Scatter them throughout your sensory bin filler and watch the theme really come to life!
FINALLY, choose a space that you feel comfortable using the sensory bin with your child. I tuck ours away in our homeschool room with the rest of our Preschool manipulatives, and keep our sensory bin blanket nearby for when it’s time to get to work. The rule with our bins – everything stays on the blanket! This makes clean up SO much easier.
READY, SET, PLAY!!! When your sensory bin is not being used for the printable activities in our Valentine’s Day Preschool theme, allow children to explore freely! Watch them scoop, pour, dig, and more! I love taking our bin our when I need a little extra quiet time for homeschooling an older child, or honestly if I just need an extra minute to sip my hot coffee!
Valentine’s Day Preschool Theme Overview
This Valentine’s Day Preschool theme is sure to give your little learners TONS of fun practice! Children will have 15 center-style activities to choose from – 5 Math, 5 Literacy and 5 Fine Motor centers. In addition, I’ve included book recommendations for 5 Valentine’s Day theme picture books and links to their read aloud videos on YouTube!
To use these printables, you can follow the PRE-MADE lesson plans for a week full of fun! Each of the 5 pre-planned days your students will have 1 read aloud, 1 Math activity, 1 Literacy activity, and 1 Fine Motor activity to work on. This is a great pace for little learners! But if you’d like to spread the activities out or rearrange them according your own child’s needs, simply print our provided Build-Your-Own Plans page and make your own plans!
PS See how we use this theme in our Preschool scope and sequence by grabbing our FREE Preschool Curriculum Map below!
Math Activities
This set of printables has 5 fun Valentine’s Day Preschool theme activities for practicing early Math skills. Children will practice number formation, number identification, counting, colors, and shapes. Our Preschool activities always include the use of small manipulatives for added fine motor skills practice!
One of my favorite Valentine’s Day theme Math activities is the activity shown above! Color sorting cards are such a great way to get kids digging into their sensory bin! To use them, I spread the cards out on the floor around our sensory bin. My little one and I discuss the colors of the hearts and look at the color words on them. Then, we dig into the sensory bin on the hunt for items that match! We place as many as we can on each card.
Want to extend this activity? There are so many ways! Try counting all of the items your child sorted onto each color. Compare the amounts, and even guide them in arranging them from least to greatest amounts! Another option – use the cards as flash cards, or print an additional copy of the cards to play a game of Matching or even Go Fish!
Literacy Activities
In addition to the Math centers, this set includes 5 early Valentine’s Day Preschool Literacy activities! Children will practice skills like letter identification, letter formation, beginning sounds, and handwriting practice with Valentine’s Day theme vocabulary words!
One of my favorite Literacy activities from our Valentine’s Day theme is the one shown above. We LOVE incorporating board games into our learning time! To play this game, take turns rolling the die with your child. Identify the letter you land on, and move to the next matching letter on the board. As a bonus, discuss the sounds each letter makes!
Fine Motor Activities
When working with little learners, strengthening fine motor skills is a must! Our 5 Valentine’s Day theme fine motor activities will have your children working hard and having TONS of fun! They will practice scissor skills, mold using play dough, trace using manipulatives, and so much more!
An activity you’ll find included in this theme are these handy scissors practice strips! Learning to use scissors in a safe environment is a super important skill, and these strips make that practice sure easy! Simply print the strips and monitor children as they practice cutting on the dash lines.
BONUS TIP: Print an additional copy of this set and laminate the strips to create tracing practice strips that you can use with a dry erase marker!
And… I lesson planned FOR YOU!
This set of activities (and all of the other 45+ sets in our FULL Preschool Curriculum) include a full week of print and go visual lesson plans! It shows you exactly which books and printables to use each day for a 5-day school week, making lesson planning an absolute breeze!
Want to build your own? Or maybe your kiddos are ready for some of the activities but not all of them? That’s great! Use the included Build Your Own lesson plans page! These thematic centers were designed with growing learners ages 2.5 to 5 years old in mind, so this lesson planning page allows you to choose which activities your child is ready for right now!
More February fun!
Ready to learn with your toddlers or Preschoolers ALL MONTH LONG?! You can save TONS when you grab this set of centers in our February Preschool Curriculum! The bundle includes 4 engaging February themes (like unicorns, Groundhog Day, and more!), complete with a week of lesson plans for each! You’ll also get 25 NO PREP Valentine’s Day themed fine motor skills worksheets and crafts, and 38 NO PREP Math and Literacy worksheets for extended practice!
Let’s hang out!
I hope this post helped you get a better look at our Valentine’s Day Theme Preschool activities! Got questions? Let me know! I’d love to chat and get to know you better! You can find us below in some of our favorite places to hang out. Can’t wait to chat with you about your Preschooler’s learning journey!
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