Family Storytime: Valentine's Day

We celebrated all things hearts, hugs, and kisses in our Valentine's Day storytime. There are so many sweet books for this theme that after our bean bag song, we dove into our first story.

The Day It Rained Hearts is a classic by Felicia Bond. I originally was going to use this story for another program, but ended up saving it for our storytime. This is a story about a girl who collects different hearts that are falling from the sky. (A great story and art tie-in is using this book with puffy paint and construction paper hearts). 

As tempted as I was to continue reading, I introduced our flannel board activity. This was a matching hearts color activity. I had different colored "broken" hearts that each child could put their matching color on the flannel board. This was good matching and color practice.

Our next book was You Know What I Love? by Lorena Siminovich. This is a story about a girl who has a doll and all the things she loves doing with her throughout her day. 

Next, we read Valentine's Are For Saying I Love You by Margaret Sutherland. I pretty much read this one every year because it explains the holiday and isn't too long. 

 

We took a break from picture books and I told a story using the flannel board. Thousands of Valentines for Hundreds of Friends is a flannel story about a class who is handing out different valentines. One student insists he has thousands of valentines for hundreds of friends. As his classmates and us as a group are trying to figure out how he can have thousands of valentines, we find out that his friends are birds and his valentines are bird seeds. The older kids in the group liked guessing throughout the story. I gave hints like asking what flies in the air and lands on tree branches and tweets. 

I read a few short poems from Bear Hugs by Karma Wilson and Suzanne Watts before we read our last Valentine's Day story, How Do You Hug a Porcupine? by Laurie Isop. The kids absolutely loved this one and I did too because it captivated their attention and you find out exactly how to hug a porcupine and other animals.

For our craft, we made a heart that hugs out of construction paper. The craft went a little fast, but the group enjoyed making their heart their own. 

Happy Valentine's Day!