Valentine’s Day at The Smart Start Preschool & Learning Center

Every February we celebrate Valentine's Day by giving flowers, candy and cards to those we love. We do this in honor of Saint Valentine. You may be wondering, "Who is St. Valentine"? Time to brush up on your Valentine's history!  There are many legends about “Valentine” some say he secretly married young men soldiers and women when the emperor of the time outlawed marriage.  Another legend claims Valentine was an imprisoned man who fell in love with his jailor's daughter. Before he was put to death he sent the first 'valentine' himself when he wrote her a letter and signed it 'Your Valentine', words still used on cards today.

We celebrate Valentine’s Day by giving cards and small tokens (gifts) to show those how much we love them.    At The Smart Start Preschool Valentine’s Day is a day we celebrate with a lot of fun which ultimately teaches our children about love, giving and caring.

On Valentine’s Day the children make Valentine mailboxes which are tissue boxes decorated by them, it’s personalized and allows them to use their creativity.  All the children share valentines with each other, showing how much we like one another, by placing a valentine in one another’s mailbox. 

Today, February 14^th we had a party, thanks to everyone who brought in tasty treats.  We read books with a Valentine theme and played Valentine Bingo.

Teaching the children about Valentine’s Day and the meaning behind it (love) is important to help them understanding the holiday and also helps us explain emotion/feelings.  Last week we blogged about behavior and how children at this age (3-5) don’t know how to identify with their emotions/feelings.  We also expressed that when you love somebody it makes you feel happy and makes you smile. 

We talked about how we love our parents, siblings and friends and the things we can do to show how much we care.  These “things” are acts of goodness.  Throughout the week we incorporate the Valentines theme as much as possible into everything we do: Sing songs about Valentines and even do Valentine math activities. One math game works with numbers: There is a set of 10 “broken” hearts and on each side there is a number and the other side has dots. The children are supposed to match the broken hearts (match the written numeral with the right amount of dots). This reinforces number concepts.

Natasha’s Tip: 

ü  Incorporate a Valentine themed book into their story (if you read them a bedtime or other-time story), make heart shaped cookies and or ask them to tell you a Valentine story that they have made up. 

ü  Ask them what they learned in school about Valentine’s Day and what it means to them.

ü  Give your children a Valentine to show them how much you love them.  You didn’t need me to tell you that!  Happy Valentine’s Day.