Valentine's Day and Toddlers

When people think of Valentine's Day many images come to mind. The most common one may include romantic dinners, perfect gifts, and beautiful flowers shared with a significant other. However, Valentine's Day is not just celebrated by adults, but many children celebrate it as well. This is evidenced by all of the cute character valentine cards that are sold for grade-schoolers everywhere. One thing that many parents do not realize is that it is never too young to start children celebrating Valentines Day, celebrating love.

One of the most basic things that a parent can do with a young child is send valentine cards to other family members and friends. Valentines can be sent to grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins and friends. This activity will be fun for the children and help teach important lessons and values such as the importance of letting people know how we feel about them, it can also show children the importance of kindness.

Before Valentines Day an activity that can be performed with a child is to prepare for the actual holidays. One easy way to do so is to focus on the upcoming holiday throughout the day. You can do simple activities like coloring valentines pictures, if you do not have a valentine's themed coloring book available you can search for printable valentines coloring pages online. Another activity could be reading valentines stories at bedtime. Finally, you can make a paper chain to count down to Valentine's Day.

Parents can participate into crafts with toddlers at this time of the year. Here are some simple craft ideas:
Heart Puzzle:
Variation One - Take a piece of cardboard and paint it pink, red or purple. Then you can cut the heart into puzzle pieces and allow your child to put it together.
Variation Two - Take a rectangle piece of cardboard and place a valentine's picture on there and cut it up into puzzle pieces. In fact, since coloring valentine pictures was a previous activity you could actually take one of those pictures that the children actually colored and use that as a base for the puzzle.

Elbow Macaroni Art:
Elbow Macaroni Art has always been a staple of childhood creativity. If you have not already introduced your child to this art form, Valentine's Day is a wonderful opportunity. The macaroni can be dyed pink or red, and then glued onto cardboard (to make a poster) or a picture frame, or any other medium which is available.

Making Homemade Cards
Making homemade cards is always a staple of young children's Valentines Day. The type of card which can be made is endless. However, the classic is a red heart trimmed in white lace. If you are looking to do something a little more current, lacing is an activity a lot of children are encouraged to do nowadays in order to help the hand eye development. Instead of gluing white lace to the edges of the heart, you could use a hand held hole punch around the edges to create holes, and then allow the child to lace colored yarn through the holes. Another popular hobby which you may have supplies for is scrapbooking. If you have any supplies in the house or want to buy some at a local art and craft store, supplies such as stickers or embellishments could be added to the homemade card.

Baking With Your Child
Finally, baking a yummy treat to share together is another nice idea for some Valentine's Day bonding. The treat could be anything from heart cookie cutouts to a heart shaped cake. You could make and decorate cupcakes together or even make rice Krispie treats together and either add red food dye or red sprinkles to the mix. Baking is always a fun activity and sharing the treat is a perfect end to this activity.
While it is important to have ways to celebrate the days leading up to Valentines Day, it is equally important to take some time to celebrate the actual holiday together. You can have a special lunch or dinner together, go out shopping for some kind of treat to share (food, a book to read together, a game to play together, a craft to enjoy together), or just spend some extra cuddle time with each other.

Some parents also like to give gifts to their children on Valentine's Day. Whether the gift is expensive or not, home made or bought, that is up to the parent. Some ideas could be a small toy, a chocolate treat (like heart shaped suckers) or an extra outing (like a special trip to the zoo).

Valentine's Day is a special holiday which can be shared between any two or more people, and just because a child has not entered school yet, that does not mean that they do not have the capacity to understand or to enjoy it.

Pamela Kazmierczak is a mother of two toddlers and also runs an ecommerce store specializing in gifts for all occasions:
http://www.theonlinegiftshoppe.com