Create, Play, Display and Cook with Hearts

The Heart Book is chalk full of heart projects for the kids to create, play with, display and cook. I've showcased a few of the Hearts on It's Playtime, as well as in a heart feature post. Here's a few more to give you yet another sneak peek of the hearts in the book.

Abstract Tissue Paper Collage

The Iowa Farmer's Wife

page 57 of The Heart Book

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Sensory Activity for All Ages: Dish Soap Foam!

I knew when I saw this snow sensory activity from dish soap, from You Pinspire Me, when I collected the ideas for the Snow Collection, that it was something the boys would love and we just had to do it.

Dish Soap Foam!

So easy, your child could, and can, do it!
I put some dish soap in a measuring cup [just squirted a good amount] and added a tad bit of water.
Dumped that in my food processor, and let the kids foam it up!

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16 Valentine's Celebrations from The Heart Project Party!

Earlier this week, Cathy of NurtureStore and I hosted a very hoppin' Valentine's Day party for The Heart Project!


A bunch of moms joined the party and swapped ideas for Valentine's Day, including family celebrations and traditions, as well as recipes and crafts.

Cathy shared yesterday a few of the Valentine's crafts and recipes that party-goers chimed in with. 

Today, I'm sharing!

Valentine's Day traditions and celebrations!

[Toddler Approved, from The Heart Book]

1. We love heart-shaped pancakes and heart-shaped fruit salads =)
   [Mama Smiles]
   
2. My mom used to make us valentines and they'd be sitting on the table when we woke up [Create with Kids]
   

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It's Playtime! The Heart Project Features

The Heart Project has been kicked off great.
A week into it and we've raised well over our initial goal over $1,000 for the American Heart Association. We've now re-evaluated our goal, and lifted it to $2k, will you help us make it?

The Heart Project is a book [The Heart Book] full of heart projects for kids to do! So many great ideas to get crafty and artsy, even get the kids in the kitchen with you, or play with some hearty items!

A few were found last week on It's Playtime. I thought I'd give you another sneak peek of the hearts in the book.

I don't mind giving you these sneak peeks of the heart projects that are in the book. Because there are well over 100 heart projects in the book. So this is just a slim choosing of them!


Plus, they're pretty awesome and I just have to show them off!

[A Little Learning for Two: Stacked Rainbow Hearts]

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Valentine's Activity for Kids: Hunt for Love

I decided that we needed some kind of Valentine's Day activity to do, instead of just crafty and artsy ideas.

We did a heart hunt last year, with great success. 

But this year, I wanted to make Henry think about love a little.

So I came up with a Hunt for Love.

To start, we needed to make plain white paper bags pretty so its ready for some love, right?

George was around and awake, so we wanted to include him and have him decorate a bag too.

I quickly came up with something that's colorful, edible and can be painted with.

Yogurt.

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The Heart Project: Sneak Peek of the Hearts

February is the month of The Heart Project here on the blog. [and 70 other blogs too!]

Every Friday through February, I'm going to give you a sneak peak into the "The Heart Book",  featuring a few of the ideas that are included. One from each of the categories outlined in the book.

In the book, there's create with love, play with love, cook with love and display with love. Together, there's over 100 heart activities to do with the kids! 

If you have gotten the book, I'd love to hear what your favorite heart projects that are included! Please share them with me!

[If you haven't gotten the book, yet, at the end of this post you'll see how to get one!]

"The Heart Book" Sneak Peak...

Create with ♥

Yarn Wrapped Hearts

by Rainbows within Reach

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Kids Valentine's Day Craft: Strings of Hearts Chandelier

We're really getting into Valentine's Day now!

We added these strings of hearts to our dining room chandelier!

I cannot tell you all the levels of learning that Henry worked on when making these.

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"Make it Kid Friendly" Idea: Fine Motor Hearts

Feeling the love?

Hope so! Valentine's Day is just around the corner.

And so is The Heart Project! 

We have 60+ bloggers creating a terrific ebook of heart projects!

These hearts caught my eye.

They're beautiful.

And the clothespins are such a nice touch!

I apologize, but I cannot find the origin of this photo.

I found it via Pinterest and cannot find it on the website that its linked to.

On to the fun stuff now!

How to make this a kid-friendly activity:

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Our Valentine Recap

What I may love even more than doing the crafts and activities themselves. 

The outcome of the craft. 

Look at my mantel! 

All homemade crafts done by my very own 2 year old.

They may not be perfect - but they look pretty awesome all together.

Happy Valentine's Day!

[1] ABC = abc

[2] Shaken, not stirred, Painted Hearts

[3] Valentine Countdown Tree

[4] Yummy Edible Valentines

[5] Valentine Tissue Wreath

[6] Sorted Button Valentine Heart 

[7] Stuffed Heart Balloon

[8] Handmade Heart Bird Feeder

[9] Stamped Heart

[10] Patterning and a Heart Hunt

We've also been reading:

Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown

Patterning and a Heart Hunt

We didn't just do crafts to get ready for Valentine's Day... 

I've noticed other blogs with toddler's doing patterns. I've never once tried to explain what a pattern is to Henry. Things like that don't cross my mind unless someone points it out to me.

I ran across this super cute printables at Pre-Kinders and thought I'd give it a try. There's simple ABAB patterns and more difficult ones like ABBABB or AABBAABB.

We only did an ABAB pattern and had difficulty with that.

 I did most of the patterning you see in the pictures.

I don't see it as a loss for the activity - just something I now know that Henry doesn't yet know.

  

I can think of lots of everyday things 

to point out patterns:

shirts

rugs / blankets

The Cat in the Hat (his hat)

... and so on...

Remember the Valentine Countdown Tree?

Henry's been taking a heart off the tree each day.

Today I decided to do a heart hunt with those.

During Henry's nap quiet alone time, 

I hid the hearts around the toy room and living room.

I didn't so much as hide them, 

but tape them up in obvious places that he can plainly see.

But he had to still look for them.

Henry had a blast searching for these. 

I numbered an egg carton to 9 (we're only to day 9 today...)

(Edited to add: Wow, just realized today is the 10th. Completely just lost a day!)

When he found one, 

he put it in the correct spot in the egg carton.

I'm going to continue to hide the hearts each day until Valentine's Day, 

adding the latest heart we took off the tree.

- Henry is about 34 months -

Stamped Heart

How can you not like abstract art?

by a toddler?

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Homemade Heart Bird Feeder

Did you know its National Bird Feeding Month?

Read about it here.

 

I've been seeing these a lot around blogs lately so I wasn't sure if I wanted to post another one.

But this is probably the one Valentine activity that Henry was so excited to do.

And he could do about 90% of it all by himself.

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Stuffed Heart Balloon

Henry made his own balloon!

(disclaimer: this is not really a balloon... 

it cannot be flown around:

Henry was extremely disappointed)

This was a two day project. 

We set out painting some butcher art paper (a brown paper bag would work too).

I told Henry to cover as much of the paper as he could.

Here he is showing me that he CAN reach all the way to the top of the paper! 

I let him choose his colors.

He really didn't like my suggestions of red-purple-pink-white again... 

and used green-yellow-orange-blue first.

By the time he got to red he was ready to cover the paper! 

Turned out great that way, I guess!

You could add lots of glitter and sparkle here, 

but we have boycotted glitter in this house for awhile.

I had to include the following photo to show that Henry is, in fact, my son.

Take a look at that arm!

(he's also a lefty here... more proof!)

We let the paint dry for the rest of the day.

The next morning I cut 2 hearts out of the papers we painted. 

I tried to make them as big as possible.

(I painted a heart too... 

I have found that just telling Henry to paint doesn't exactly work. 

If I do the same thing with him the entire way, he's much more interested)

I then folded over about a 1/2" seam to the backside of the hearts.

I had to cut slits along the way to get it to lay right.

I then hot glued the seams of the hearts together, leaving the bottom of the heart open for stuffing.

(If you were to just glue the hearts together without the seam, the heart wouldn't get puffy)

Phew - that was a lot of work I had to do by myself.

I better get some help now.

Blue Dog and Giraffe Henry helped 

stuff the balloon with crumpled up newspapers.

The stuffing caused some tears in the seams, so I hot glued some more.

I then closed up the seams around a paper towel roll.

It's top heavy, so I had to stick it in a jar to stand up. 

Or you could fill the roll with marbles if you have some on hand.

Idea from Forskoleburken (it's in Swedish, so I hope you have a translator!)

Sorted Button Valentine Heart

I know I said the Valentine Tissue Wreath was one of my favorites, but this is my favorite!

I absolutely love how this looks on my mantel right now. 

It glimmers and shines in the light.

Henry started with sorting buttons by color in a muffin tin.

(I was planning on only using reds, pinks, and whites)

I made a swirl design in glue around and around a cutout heart.

Henry added buttons to his desire!

(Henry wouldn't have it with my color selection and used every single color.)

... and kept adding ...

I added some in the tiny spaces.

Then I glued it to a pink scrapbook page and propped it up against a picture frame on my mantel...

and its oh-so-pretty.

Idea from Pink and Green Mama

This project has been included in The Heart Project.

Make a donation of $5 to the American Heart Association

and receive The Heart Project ebook as a free gift!

US $5.00 Donation to AHA

US $20.00 Order the Printed Version [$5 of every sale of the printed book will go to the AHA]

Valentine Tissue Wreath

This is one of my favorites so far!

Henry got busy painting a piece of white butcher paper (we get it from the bakery, you could use any kind of construction or heavier paper). While he painted, I cut out a wreath shape from cardboard (Chalk in My Pocket, where I got this idea, used a pizza delivery box for this).

I then got busy making 'flowers' out of tissue paper. I quickly cut rough (about 8") circles out of red and pink tissue paper. Then I just bunched it up in the middle and twisted a little. I handed it to Henry to dip in the paint. He then placed them on the wreath where he wanted them.

I was hoping Henry would do the next part. Stapling the flowers to the wreath. But he had no interest, so I didn't push it. He tried once, but couldn't push the stapler hard enough to get through the cardboard. So I ended up doing that. I also cut hearts out of the painted butcher paper. After they were all attached to the cardboard wreath, I let Henry have at it with red glitter.

There were bare spots yet, so I just used scrap pieces of tissue paper and stapled them on until it was mostly covered.

I love the result!

 

Yummy Edible Valentines

Growing up, frosted graham crackers was one of my favorites. Every time my mom made cupcakes, cake or brownies, the extra frosting always went on graham crackers. Even though these are pretty yummy, I'm not sure why they were a favorite, maybe its just the memories that are my favorites - or maybe its just because Mom makes everything better. 

I got this idea from Toddlers Busy Book

Frost some graham crackers with your favorite frosting.

Sorry, no recipe - we own a bakery, so I didn't have to make it.

Add your favorite candy hearts.

I don't like the regular ones, so we used SweetTart hearts.

Eat up!