Valentine’s Day presents a fantastic chance to expose preschoolers to the delight of honoring love and friendship. To stimulate emotional growth and imagination, it’s crucial to involve young kids in activities that combine enjoyment and learning.
The activities detailed here, ranging from creating handmade valentines to partaking in heart-themed games, suit both classroom settings and home-based learning. Each activity is selected considering both the fun element and its educational benefits.
They assist children in honing their fine motor skills, recognizing patterns, and nurturing emotional intelligence.
Additionally, these activities foster unity and teamwork among young learners, making them perfect for commemorating a day devoted to love and care. This guide, designed for teachers, parents, and caregivers alike, offers several ideas to make Valentine’s Day a memorable and significant occasion for your preschoolers.
Preschool Valentine’s Day Activities for Kids
1. Stained Glass Heart Suncatcher
Create adorable heart-shaped prints using simple cardboard tubes and tape—perfect for little hands to explore shapes and colors. Kids can stamp vibrant hearts onto paper, making unique artwork or homemade Valentine’s Day cards.
The process encourages creativity and sensory play, as children enjoy both stamping and feeling the paint. Using recycled materials adds an eco-friendly touch, while the easy-to-grip handle makes it accessible for toddlers and preschoolers to join in the fun.
2. Mess-Free Heart Painting
Mess free painting lets babies and toddlers create colorful artwork without any cleanup worries. Simply place drops of paint on thick cardstock, seal it in a resealable bag, and let little hands squish and swirl the colors around.
Once finished, remove the painted paper, let it dry, and cut it into shapes or frame it for a special keepsake. This activity is perfect for gifts and helps young children explore creativity in a safe, parent-approved way.
3. Valentine’s Day Paper Chain
Brighten up any Valentine’s Day celebration with these charming paper chains, featuring festive designs in pinks, reds, and hearts. Simply print, cut, and link the strips together to create a cheerful garland perfect for parties, classrooms, or home décor.
Children and adults alike will enjoy assembling the links, making it a fun and interactive activity. Display the finished chain on a mantel, doorway, or wall to instantly add a touch of sweetness to your space.
4. Painted Heart Toast
Brighten up breakfast with painted heart toast, a playful project that lets kids turn bread into edible art. Using heart-shaped cutters and a simple mix of milk and food coloring, little ones can paint vibrant designs before toasting and enjoying their creations.
Perfect for Valentine’s Day or any day you want to add a splash of color, this activity encourages creativity and hands-on fun, making snack time both memorable and delicious for children of all ages.
5. Puffy Paint
Create vibrant, textured hearts using an easy, homemade puffy paint recipe made from self-rising flour, salt, water, and food coloring. Kids will love painting their heart shapes with Q-tips, then watching the magic happen as the paint puffs up in the microwave.
These puffy hearts can be turned into Valentine’s Day cards, garlands, or festive decorations, offering a hands-on, creative activity that’s perfect for preschoolers and anyone looking to add a personal touch to their celebrations.
6. Valentine Card Making Party
Set the scene for a festive Valentine card making party, perfect for kids and their friends. With heart-themed decorations, vibrant balloons, and a colorful table setting, the atmosphere feels joyful and inviting.
Supplies like markers, stickers, stamps, and stencils are organized in playful containers, making it easy for little hands to get creative. Simple snacks, pink lemonade, and sweet treats round out the celebration, while guests leave with personalized cards and adorable heart-themed favor bags.
7. Foil Printed Hearts
Foil heart painting invites toddlers to explore art in a fresh, hands-on way—without using a paintbrush. By scrunching up kitchen foil and dipping it into vibrant paints, little ones can stamp and dab unique textures onto heart-shaped cardstock.
The process is simple enough for young children to enjoy independently, making it a delightful option for Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day cards. Parents will appreciate using everyday materials and encouraging creativity with minimal setup and mess.
8. Wool Wrapped Heart
Brighten up Valentine’s Day with a simple wool heart craft designed for little hands. Using soft yarn and a sturdy heart-shaped base, toddlers can wrap and wind colorful strands to create their own unique decorations.
This activity encourages creativity while developing fine motor skills, making it a fun project for young children and parents to do together. Display the finished hearts as festive garlands or heartfelt gifts for friends and family to enjoy.
9. Heart-Themed Fine Motor Activity
Little hands will love this heart-themed fine motor activity, designed especially for toddlers. Using heart-shaped pasta, colorful straws, and soft playdough, children can stack, unstack, and rebuild their creations as many times as they like.
The activity encourages hand-eye coordination, concentration, and finger strength, all while keeping things playful and engaging. Perfect for Valentine’s Day or any time you want to add a little love to learning, this setup promises plenty of hands-on fun.
10. Wiggly Worms Lacing Activity
Kids will love threading colorful spools onto a cord to create their own wiggly worm toy, complete with a felt heart face and googly eyes. This hands-on activity uses simple household items like empty thread spools, shoelaces, and pipe cleaners, making it easy to set up and safe for little hands.
As children lace and assemble their worms, they build fine motor skills and enjoy imaginative play with a homemade pull toy they helped design.
11. Valentine’s Tea Party
Create a cozy Valentine’s Day tea party at home, complete with homemade cupcakes and cookies decorated with festive sprinkles and conversation hearts. Kids can join in every step, from cracking eggs and mixing dough to rolling out cookies and adding colorful toppings.
Set the table with your favorite china, light some candles, and pour special teas for a memorable family gathering that encourages togetherness, creativity, and sweet traditions everyone will look forward to each year.
12. Valentine’s Day Montessori Trays
Valentine’s Day Montessori trays invite children to celebrate the holiday through hands-on activities that nurture creativity and fine motor skills. Younger kids can string large plastic beads onto pipe cleaners or shoelaces to make festive bracelets for friends, all in cheerful pinks and reds.
Older children enjoy designing and writing heartfelt valentines, using punches and stickers to personalize each card. These trays encourage meaningful giving and turn ordinary tasks into memorable, love-filled moments for the whole family.
13. DIY Cupid’s Cookie Shop
Kids can set up their own Cupid’s Cookie Shop using just felt, a heart-shaped cookie cutter, and a few simple craft supplies. By layering beige, pink, and red felt, little bakers create adorable pretend cookies complete with “icing” and “sprinkles.
” Add a mini rolling pin, doilies, and treat bags for extra fun. Perfect for imaginative Valentine’s Day play, this activity keeps children entertained while encouraging creativity, role-playing, and sharing with friends or family.
14. Heart Button Snake
Kids can slide colorful foam hearts onto a ribbon by threading buttons through slits, creating a playful Valentine-themed activity that keeps little hands busy. The heart button snake is simple to make and encourages children to practice coordination and dexterity.
As little ones add hearts, they can also count, create patterns, or explore basic math concepts. This hands-on project transforms everyday materials into a fun way to support early learning and fine motor development.
15. Love Monster Craft
Kids will have a blast making their own love monster with just paper, glue, scissors, and a bit of creativity. Bright colors and silly features make each monster unique, while the free printable template keeps the process simple and stress-free.
Little hands can practice cutting, gluing, and drawing as they assemble eyes, horns, and hearts. Perfect for Valentine’s Day, this project adds a playful touch to any celebration and encourages imaginative fun with every step.
16. Paper Roll Heart Mouse
Transform empty paper rolls into adorable Valentine’s Day heart mice with just a few simple supplies. Kids can mix and match colorful heart stickers to create the mouse’s ears and nose, then add googly eyes, whiskers, and a curly paper tail.
This hands-on project is perfect for little ones, offering a fun way to recycle and get creative. The finished mouse makes a sweet classroom decoration or a thoughtful handmade gift for someone special.
17. Handprint Valentine Craft
Kids can create a heartfelt keepsake with a handprint Valentine card, perfect for sharing love on special occasions. By tracing and cutting out their handprint from folded cardstock, little ones form a card that opens to reveal three colorful paper hearts inside.
Personal touches—like handwritten messages, stickers, or even a small photo—make each card unique. This simple project encourages creativity and fine motor skills, while resulting in a sweet, personalized gift that loved ones will cherish.
18. Handprint Heart Tree
Create a charming 3D handprint heart tree using simple materials like paper plates, paint, and glitter paper. Kids trace and cut out their handprint to form the tree trunk, then decorate with colorful hearts for a festive touch.
The finished piece stands upright, making it a delightful decoration for Valentine’s Day or Mother’s Day. This project doubles as a sweet keepsake, perfect for gifting to loved ones or displaying proudly at home or school.
19. Fingerprint Heart Valentines Day Tree
Kids can create a charming Valentine’s Day keepsake by turning their hand and fingerprints into a colorful heart tree. Using simple supplies like paint, cardstock, and a pencil, little artists will love painting their hand and arm to form the trunk and branches.
By pressing painted fingertips onto the tree, they add heart-shaped leaves in vibrant shades. This project encourages creativity, sensory play, and makes a sweet handmade card or artwork to share with loved ones.
20. Valentine’s Day Estimation Activity
Bring some excitement to your Valentine’s Day party with a simple estimation game that kids can’t resist. Fill a clear jar with candy hearts, kisses, or colorful pom poms, and let everyone guess how many items are inside.
Each child writes down their best guess, then eagerly awaits the big reveal. This activity is easy to set up, requires minimal supplies, and sneaks in a bit of math practice while keeping the festive mood lively.
21. Valentine Floam Slime
Create a batch of Valentine Floam Slime that’s both crunchy and stretchy, perfect for sensory play. Pink paint and a mix of red and white polystyrene balls give it a festive, colorful look for Valentine’s Day.
Adult supervision is recommended for younger children.
The texture is fun to squish and mold into shapes, making it a hands-on activity for kids. Store the slime in an airtight container to keep it fresh for repeat play sessions.