Lost In Pizzaland: Valentine's Day Week: Week 21: Tuesday

Valentine's Day Week

Tuesday

Crafts:

Valentine's Box: Covered cube-shaped tissue box, paints, seasonal confetti, stickers and assorted heart cutouts, 2 1/2" length of pipe cleaner, craft knife, permanent marker, glue, hole puncher

In advance, cover the sides of the box with a 5 1/2"x18" piece of red pink or white contact covering. Use the craft knife to cut along one side of box to make a flap. Go down only 3/4 way. Then cut out a heart-shaped flap with scissors.
Paint the top of the tissue box. Let the paint dry.
Use the marker to write your child's name on the flap.
Decorate the box with valentine confetti, stickers, and heart cutouts.
Punch a hole in the box top and another in the flap.
Thread one end of the pipe cleaner through the hole in the flap; then twist it to secure it.
Shape the other end of the pipe cleaner into a hook. Insert it into the hole in the box top.
To use, deposit valentine cards(and small treats) in the top opening of the box. Then unhook and open the flap to remove the goodies.

Heart Jester: Two craft sticks, construction paper, gogglie eyes, cardboard box scraps, paints, glue

Glue two craft sticks together to make an X shape.
Cut two construction paper hearts to form the body. Glue them together with the X sandwiched in between.
Cut a smaller paper heart for the head. Glue a gogglie eye and a paper smile on the face. Add small paper hearts, if you like.
Cut four 1/2-inch hearts from cardboard-box scraps. Cut small slits into, but not through, the center of the hearts. Paint them, if you wish, and let dry. Press the craft-stick ends into the slits. Glue to secure.

Stick-with-a-Heart Bouquet: Construction paper, craft stick, ribbon

Cut four hearts-two pin and two red--about 2 1/2 inches wide by 2 1/2 inches high.
Cut two 1-inch hearts from green paper. Cut a slightly smaller heart from purple paper.
Arrange the four large hearts to make a heart bouquet at one end of the craft stick, and glue in place. Add the two green hearts to make heart-shaped leaves. Add the small purple heart in the middle of the craft stick.
Add a small ribbon bow. Write a message on the center large heart, if you wish.

Magazine Valentine: Pencil, thin cardboard, construction paper, magazines, white paper, ribbon and other trims

Sketch a small heart on the in cardboard. Cut the heart out to use as a pattern.
Make a folded card from construction paper that is slightly larger than the heart pattern.
Use the pattern to trace a heart on the front of the card. Cut the traced heart out.
From a magazine, cut an area of red or pink color that is slightly larger than the heart. Glue the magazine picture inside the card so that the color shows through the cutout heart. Cut a liner from the white paper. Glue the liner inside the card.
Add some ribbon or trim to the front.

Handprint Heart Keepsake Hanger: Craft foam(Red, purple, white, pink), glue, red string, red finger paint

Cut out a white heart big enough for both your child's hands. Have your child place the hands into the paint and place their hands on the heart. Palm side is at the top of the heart.
Cut out a purple rectangle for your heart to fit into and for a border around the hands too. Glue heart into center of the rectangle.
Cut out squares out of the pink, red and white craft foam. This will be used for the border. Glue the squares around the rectangle.
Cut out 4 purple hearts and glue them into the corners.
Cut out 2 signs to glue on top and bottom and write Happy Valentine's Day and the bottom have your child's name and year.
Glue string onto the back of the picture for hanging.

Activity:

Heart-Shaped Art: Heart-shaped cookie cutter, paints, paper

Dip the cookie cutter into the paints and make heart-shaped art work.

Homemade Paper: Sponge, scraps of paper, blender, water, piece of window screen, foam meat tray, scissors, duct tray, plastic dishpan and a board

Make a dipping screen: Cut the center out of a clean foam meat tray. Cut a piece of window screen to fit the hole and tape it to the tray.
Tear stationery, computer paper, business cards, index cards, and envelopes into small pieces. Don't use newspaper, paper towels, or tissues.
Fill the blender 3/4 full of water. Turn it on low and slowly add a handful of paper pieces. Use lots of water and not much paper, or you'll ruin the blender.
Grind the paper into a soupy mash (called pulp). Pour the water and pulp into the dishpan half full of water. The pulp will float! Do this 5 to 6 times.
Slip your dipping screen into the water under the floating pulp. Lift it straight up, catching a thin layer of pulp on the screen.
Gently flip the screen over onto a damp towel. Pat the back of the screen with a wet sponge to release the layer of pulp.
Lift off the screen and fold the towel over on top of the pulp. Repeat this process until you have several layers of pulp between layers of towel or cloth.
Place the stack of towels and paper on the basement floor or outside on the sidewalk. Put the board on top and stand on it to squeeze out the water.
Peel back the towel and very gently work your fingers under the paper and lift it off. Do this for each piece of paper, and put them on a flat surface to dry overnight.
You can also decorate homemade paper after you flip it off the screen on to the towel. Pat any small, flat object into it. Try dried flowers, strips of ribbon, or tiny stars, and sequins. Then press the paper and let it dry.
Now your child can make a personalized Valentine's Day Card.

Snack:

Eat Your Heart Out!: 3 (3-ounce) packages of red flavored gelatin, 1 (14-ounce) can of sweetened condensed milk, 2 (1/4-ounce) envelopes of unflavored gelatin

Dissolve one package of flavored gelatin in 3/4 cup boiling water. Add 3/4 cup cold water, then pour the mixture into a 9-by 13-inch glass pan and refrigerate for 1 hour.
Stir together 1/2 cup boiling water and the condensed milk. In a separate bowl, dissolve all the unflavored gelatin in 1/2 cup cold water for 1 to 2 minutes. Throughly mix in 3/4 cup boiling water, then combine this mixture with the milk and let it cool. Add half the mixture to the pan of red gelatin, pouring it over a spatula to slow the stream, and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
Continue alternating layers--gelatin mix, the remaining milk mix, the final gelatin mix-chilling each for 20 to 30 minutes to set it. Create individual servings with a heart-shaped cookie cutter.
Found at FamilyFun.com.

Education:

Letters/Words:

Alphabet Practice: Paper, Permanent Marker, Contact Paper, Dry Erase Marker

On a 16 pieces of paper divide it into 12 squares. Each alphabet gets their own paper.
In each square write an alphabet letter like A or a on the left hand side by itself. On the right side write 3 letters make sure on is an A or a. The other letters can be any alphabet they want, like m or T.
Have your child try to find the matching letters. Circle the correct ones with dry erase markers.
You don't have to cover them in contact paper if you don't want, I did so my child can redo them over and over again.
You can do this with words too. Helps them recognize the words more and help them to read.

Missing "A" Letter: Paper, Pencil, Pictures of things with the letter A like Apple, Ant, Man, Cat, Map

Divide the paper into 6-8 squares.
In each square glue the picture. Then below each picture right the word, expect leave out the letter A or a.
Then, have your child say what the picture is, then write the missing letter in each square, and finally have them say the word again. Repetition is good for learning how to read.
You can laminate these papers too, if you wish.

Word For The day: Index card, Pen

Of
Practice the word with your child, through-out the day.
Write the word on an index card and store in box.
When reading a story point out the word, and have them say it and spell it.

Numbers:

Noisy Animals and Things:

Count to 3 and say the name of an animal or bird, like a duck.
Imitate the sound of a loud duck 3 times--quack! quack! quack!
Take turns or do it together.
Now name 3 things that are noisy around home or neighborhood and imitate the sound 3 times. Like: vacuum cleaner, a clock, purring cat, a car, a train, fire engine, etc.

3 Animals:

Think of 3 animals that you would find on a farm and count them on your fingers as you say their names out loud.
Now count and name 3 animals you could see at the park.
What 3 animals might you see at the ocean.

Music:

Have your child play their Kazoo they made yesterday and sing Valentine's song. List on Monday's post.

Reading:

The Mitten by Jan Brett

The Mitten: 2 white stretchy knee socks, scissors, needles and thread, items to represent animals in the story.

In advance, cut the two knee socks down the middle, open them flat and sew the edges together to make a long stretchy mitten.
Fill the mitten with the animals.
Let your child tell the story of The Mitten rather than reading it.
When finished telling the story, hold up the stuffed mitten and say, " Here is Nikki's mitten. Let's see what animal crawled inside to get warm!"
Ask your child to reach inside the mitten and retrieve an animal.

Science: Place one of animals inside the mitten. Ask your child to feel the outside of the mitten (or inside the mitten) and guess what animal is inside.

Nursery Rhyme: