Only a couple of weeks to go before Valentine’s day. So this week let’s look at some ideas that can be used to mark the day – but also extended so that they can be used all year round.

The first is a ‘lacing heart’ – this gives the children fine motor skill practice and also practice tying knots and bows. Take stiff red or pink card and cut out a heart shape for each child – whatever size you prefer. Then, using a hole punch, make holes at regular intervals around the heart about an inch in from the edge.

Next take a length of coloured ribbon or coloured string and show the children how to thread it through the holes, starting at the bottom of the heart. When they’ve worked their way around the entire heart, they can tie a firm bow at the bottom. (Tip: if you wrap a little tape around the end of the ribbon to make it less flexible it is easier to push through the holes.) The centre of the heart can then be decorated with:

Acrylic jewels

Glitter stars

Foam Hearts and Flowers

But you don’t have to stick to heart shapes for this. Why not take some of the shapes from the Geometric Cabinet and scale them up for the children to lace around?

Next, why not use Valentine’s day as an excuse to get some scissor skills practice? Again cut out some pink or red hearts (any size) from card. Give one to each child and then provide them with:

glue

scissors

pink paper

pink tissue paper

red cellophane

Cover each heart with glue and then get the children to snip at the different kinds of paper and cellophane and then stick the pieces to the heart so that it is completely covered with a mixture of different textures – but in co-ordinating colours. It gives a lovely effect and the heart can, in turn, be stuck to the front of folded white card to make a greetings card for the occasion.

Again, if you want to ignore the Valentine theme, you could get older children to choose a specific shape and then fill it with the same shapes. So they could, for example, choose a hexagon and then fill it with hexagon-shaped cut outs. They could use one colour only or a variety of colours. On a larger scale, you could get the class to work on a collage, filled with different bands of shapes working down or across: squares, triangles, rectangles, polygons etc.

So, whether you’re helping children make cute presents for their parents or simply getting them to hone their fine motor skills, why not use these ideas as a starting point. And don’t forget – there are more ideas for Valentine craft ideas at www.artfuldogers.co.uk