Layered Hearts Valentine’s Craft for Preschoolers
Looking for a fun Valentine’s craft for preschoolers? This layered hearts craft is the one to try.
It’s a mix of scissor cutting skills and a measurement activity, all tied up in a cute and simple preschool craft for Valentine’s Day.
Oh, and did I mention? — It’s a wonderful friendship and kindness craft that can be given away as a Valentine!
Consider adding this with a super cute heart craft to your Valentines preschool lesson plans. It incorporates scissor cutting prctice, fine motor skills, measurement, and thematic fun all in one!
This particular art project combines the fun of crafting with the educational benefits of a measurement activity, resulting in a delightful and easy-to-make craft suitable for Valentine’s Day.
Not only does it foster fine motor skills through scissor practice, but it also serves as a heartfelt gesture of friendship and kindness when shared as a personalized Valentine gift. Preschool parents love this craft!
I’ve written before about the difficulties children have when learning to use scissors. Like learning to read, there are A LOT of things simultaneously going on.
One way we are constantly working on our scissor cutting and fine motor skills is through the use of our Fine Motor Task Boxes.
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Why Do Valentine Crafts in Preschool?
If you’ve hung around this websiet before, you know I am an advocate for process art inpreschool. However, this does not mean there isn’t a place for crafts as well.
Engaging in Valentine crafts with preschoolers is beneficial for several reasons:
- Development of Fine Motor Skills
- Crafts often involve the use of scissors, glue, folding, and coloring, which are essential activities to enhance hand-eye coordination and dexterity in young children.
- Social and Emotional Learning
- Valentine crafts can be centered around themes of love, kindness, and friendship. This helps to teach children the importance of expressing positive emotions and caring for others.
- Educational Integration
- Incorporating elements like a measurement activity for preschool can turn crafting into a hands-on learning experience that involves math and comparison skills.
- Following Instructions
- By participating in structured activities, children learn to follow step-by-step instructions, which is a crucial skill for both academic and life success.
Overall, Valentine crafts for preschoolers are more than just fun activities; they are a holistic tool for development that can stimulate growth in multiple areas such as cognitive abilities, emotional intelligence, and fine motor skills.
Layered Hearts Craft for Valentine’s Day
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You can choose to focus on some scissor cutting skills with this craft or work on measurement skills. Or just have fun doing a hearts craft with your preschoolers.
If you have a Cricut, Silhouette, or another cutting machine, you can cut the hearts out in advance and make this craft even faster during class time.
Depending on the skill level of my class, and my objectives for this activity, sometimes I choose that option.
You can also allow children to cut out their own hearts for some cutting practice and fine motor practice.
This layered hearts craft not only looks festive and fun, but it is also a wonderful craft to use to strengthen math skills. You can use this activity to learn about patterns, sizing, measuring, and categorizing things by color or size.
The possibilities are nearly endless, and preschoolers will have a blast no matter what!
Materials
- Valentine’s themed scrapbook paper (or paper of different colors)
- Scissors
- Glue
- Tape
- Mahmood, Zahid (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 40 Pages – 01/09/2024 (Publication Date) – Independently published (Publisher)
- Lipsey, Tabitha (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 48 Pages – 11/18/2023 (Publication Date) – Independently published (Publisher)
- Yun, Ladislao (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 42 Pages – 12/14/2022 (Publication Date) – Independently published (Publisher)
The Set-Up
If using a cutting machine to make the hearts, cut them out in advance. We used hearts that were six inches, five inches, four inches, three inches, and one and a half inches in diameter.
I also cut out each of those sets in different colors.
So, if using five different diameters you will also want five different colors, at least, so that there is a complete set for each color. This will add to the measurement and color challenge you’ll read about below.
Alternatively, invite your preschoolers to do their own cutting.
Note: when choosing this option, I offer my preschoolers a set of their own to cut out but then we put all the hearts in a pile together to make it more of a community project.
Plus, having all the hearts mixed up add to the level of difficulty because it requires the preschoolers to sort through the hearts for the specific size and color they are looking for!
We also have this fun Valentine’s Counting & Addition Game, too!
How to Make the Layered Hearts Valentine’s Craft for Preschoolers
Invite your preschooler to use the hearts to make one layered heart
Show the preschoolers how the hearts are in different sizes and different colors. The goal is to layer the hearts, one on top of another.
But there’s a catch…try to encourage your preschoolers to do the following:
- layer the hearts so that same colors are not sitting on each other
- layer the hearts so that they use one heart of every size available
I used five different sizes, but each additional size adds to the difficulty! This really challenges preschoolers to think about different measurement concepts.
How This is a Measurement Activity for Kids
Wondering how this is a measurement activity for preschoolers?
Before starting the craft part of the activity, work on the math portion. Instruct the preschoolers to arrange the hearts from biggest to smallest, or smallest to biggest.
They can then sort the hearts by size, color, or shape.
This step is particularly important for younger preschoolers and it will help them layer the hearts correctly.
If your preschoolers are struggling with five hearts, then eliminate two and invite them to sequence the remaining three. Large, medium, and small.
Then, I like to offer another size heart and say something like,
This heart isn’t the biggest and it’s not the smallest. Where do you think this heart would fit into out line?
Invite your preschooler to place the additional heart where he thinks it goes. Sometimes, I have my preschoolers start on the left and lay the extra heart on top of the first.
Is this heart bigger or smaller? That’s right. It’s smaller. Let’s try the next heart…
If the heart is bigger than the next, the preschooler figures out where the extra heart falls in between the two.
This may sound like simple math, but for preschoolers, it’s an important step in learning measurement, sequencing, and categorizing.
When the math portion is complete, instruct the kids how to layer the hearts with the biggest heart on the bottom and the smallest heart on top with the other hearts layered by size in between.
The idea was to challenge the children to layer as many hearts as possible.
Once the kids are satisfied that they have layered as many hearts as they could, and in the correct order, let the kids glue their hearts down.
Display the Preschool Valentine’s Craft
You can tape the hearts around the classroom and use them as festive decorations during February. Wouldn’t they make a lovely garland all taped to a string of yarn and hung along a door frame or window?!
I adore how different each layered heart turns out. They are kinda’ like snowflakes in that each one ends up different but they all look so pretty together.
This is such a simple Valentine’s craft for preschoolers, but they love it!
Books About Friendship for Kids
- This book about friendship for kids helps kids navigate friendships during the elementary years….
- SIZE: 8.5 x 5.5″
- LENGTH: 50 pages
- Hardcover Book
- Sally Anne Garland (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Shannon, Samantha (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- Amazon Kindle Edition
- Stagg, Jacquelyn (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- Martin, April (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 38 Pages – 12/17/2022 (Publication Date) – Calendar Kids Books (Publisher)
Preschool Valentine Crafts
Are you hooked? Are you looking for even more cute and decorative Valentine crafts for preschoolers?
You’ll love these below. They have been hand-selected to be developmentally appropriate for preschoolers.
- Finger Painted Heart Craft
- Shaving Cream Art Marbled Hearts
- Confetti Heart Craft for Valentine’s Day
- Q-Tip Painted Hearts
- Heart Sun Catchers
- I Love You to Pieces Valentine Craft
- Easy Heart Valentine Card for Toddlers
Heart Activities for Preschoolers
No other shape is more iconic of love, kindness, and friendship than the heart. Here are some heart activities for preschoolers to add to your preschool Valentine’s Day lesson plans, too.
More Activities that Teach Kids to Measure
Make this valentines craft for preschoolers and turn them into Valentine cards or little love bug cards. But are you looking for activities for measuring length? Try these:
LAYERED HEARTS VALENTINE’S CRAFT FOR PRESCHOOLERS
If you are in need of a friendship and kindness craft that also can double as a valentine, you have come to the right place!
This layered heart Valentine's craft for preschoolers is simple, fun, and uses supplies that you probably already have on hand...win, win!
This adorable preschool craft also happens to offer measurement and scissor skills practice.
Add this to your preschool Valentine's plans and see how much joy it brings to your preschool classroom!
Materials
- Valentine’s themed scrapbook paper (or paper of different colors)
- Scissors
- Glue
- Tape
Instructions
- If using a cutting machine to make the hearts, cut them out in advance. I used hearts that were six inches, five inches, four inches, three inches, and one and a half inches in diameter. Cut out each of these measurements in different colors (5 different colors).
- Alternatively, invite your preschoolers to do their own cutting. When choosing this option, I offer my preschoolers a set of their own to cut out but have them add their hearts to a pile for use by all.
- Before your preschoolers create their heart craft, have them explore some math concepts. Instruct them to arrange the hearts from biggest to smallest, or smallest to biggest. They can then sort the hearts by size, color, or shape.
- Now that they have had some sorting and sequencing practice, invite your preschoolers to make their own layered heart.
- Model how to make 5 layers, with the hearts getting smaller as you layer up.
- I also like to challenge the kids to use a variety of colors/patterns and not repeat the same, one heart on top of the other.
- Once the kids have layered an appropriate number of hearts, and in the correct order, let them glue their hearts down.
- The hearts are now ready to display, or your preschoolers could write on them and gift them to someone special as a valentine.
Notes
To help teach early measurement skills, encourage the preschoolers to:
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I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.
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