Creative and Curious Kids!

Friday, February 1, 2013

Free Printable: Ll is for love

We are working on the letter Ll this week, so I wanted to create an Ll activity that related to Valentine's Day. After searching, all I could find was Vv is for Valentine, so I created this printable to meet our needs for this week. Please feel free to print this out. If you share on a blog, just be sure to link back to Creative and Curious Kids!

Ll is for love printable

We will be coloring in the hearts with crayon first and then painting the L with water colors. There is space on the page also for little ones to be creative and draw someone or something that they love. Enjoy!

Jen

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Creative Valentine Critters

One of my favorite creative Valentine activities to do with my children when they were younger was to make little critters with different sized and colored hearts. My big girls would probably still enjoy this activity today.

Here are some of their creations from the past. They even decorated a pink tree one year with their adorable animals! This idea originally came from Preschool Playbook and I posted about it.. here.

I wanted to share the idea with you again, because today I came across a video that would supplement this activity perfectly! Below you will see just a preview of this digital picture book. The full book can be purchased for just $3 at TPT store. (which I just purchased because little man loved the preview.. it is really cute. We must have played it 3 times in a row)

To inspire creativity, my suggestion would be to show just part of the book before creating creatures and then sharing the rest of the book after creatures have been created. This gives your child or student a chance to create their own unique ideas. (unless your 3 year old begs you and drives you nutty, so you show him the whole thing! Ha!)

Happy Valentine's....
Jen

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Simple Valentine Craft

Today we made this cute little love bug with just a few materials.

Materials

Red card stock

Pink Construction Paper

Toilet Paper Roll

Bendy Straw

Glue and Tape

Directions: First I measured my red paper to fit around the toilet paper roll and then cut to fit. Next, I cut out a large red heart and two pink smaller hearts- one for the head and one a little bit larger to fit inside the red heart.

Now it is ready for the little ones to get to work.

1. Have your child put glue on the red rectangle. Help your little one glue it around the toilet paper roll. Tape to secure.

2. Now instruct your child to glue the pink heart on the red heart. Next, glue onto the back of the roll.

3. Next, glue the smaller pink heart for a head. I added a face. Depending on the age of the child, they may want to try to draw the face themselves.

4. Cut bendy straws and help your child tape them inside the tube.

Optional: add more small hearts to the bugs body or legs. Also, can use heart stickers.

The little one that I babysit is 18 months. She hugged her bug when it was finished. So cute!

Before or after the craft, read the adorable book- You're My Little Love Bug.

Our version lights up and plays music. My little man loves it. (a gift from Momma last Valentine's Day!)

Jen

Thursday, January 24, 2013

We Teach Gifted and Enrichment

Just wanted to share some exciting news! I decided to start a group on
We Teach that focuses on meeting the needs of high-end learners. This is the place where we can share and learn from each other. With 10 years of experience working in this field, I'm hoping that I can share my knowledge and resources with this community of teachers, but also learn from you and see things from a regular classroom teacher's perspective. What challenges do you have meeting varying needs? What subjects are you good at enriching? What tools have been successful?

Come and join We Teach Gifted and Enrichment and share you ideas!

Jen