🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop
- 🖐️ Fine Motor Skills — Manipulating small objects, tools, and materials during hands-on activities builds the hand strength and finger dexterity children need for writing and self-care.
- 🔁 Cause & Effect Thinking — Noticing that one action produces a predictable result — mixing colors, toppling a tower, adding water to powder — is the earliest form of scientific and logical thinking.
- 🏃 Gross Motor Development — Large-movement activities develop the coordination, balance, and muscle strength that underpin physical confidence and school-readiness fitness.
- 💬 Language Development — Narrating play, hearing new vocabulary, and describing what they're doing dramatically expands children's language range and the sentence complexity they'll bring to reading and conversation.
This easy-to-make Valentine's Day place mat will allow you and your preschooler to cherish the memories of such a special day.
What You Need
Red, pink or white construction paper
Red, pink or white heart doiliesA current picture of your preschooler
Glue
Markers
Contact paper
What To Do
Step 1: Glue the picture of your preschooler to the middle of a heart doily. Glue the doily to the center of a piece of construction paper.
Step 2: Decorate the remainder of the place mat with other colored doilies.
Step 3: Have your preschooler print his/her name and the holiday on the paper.
Step 4: Laminate the piece of construction paper. Now it can be used as a place mat.
To Draw a Perfect Heart
If your preschooler is having trouble drawing a heart, offer him/her a heart-shaped cookie cutter. It is the perfect stencil!
Start a Family Tradition
Each member of the family can create one of these place mats or simply make one each Valentine's Day. Your preschooler will love to see how s/he changes and grows throughout the years.
More Valentine's Day Preschool Activities
Valentine's Day Hearts Hide-and-Seek Preschool Activity If you are planning to host a Valentine's Day party for your child, here is a preschool activity that is sure to be a lot of fun. It's a great game of hide-and-seek but instead of the children hiding, paper hearts are hidden ahead of time. The one who finds the most hidden hearts is the winner.
Ten Ways to Celebrate Valentine's Day with a PreschoolerValentine's Day can be a fun and loving holiday -- not only at home, but in the classroom as well. This list of preschool activities will engage those youngsters and teach them a true meaning behind the Feb. 14 holiday.
Happy Valentine's Day Preschool Breakfast Let's celebrate Valentine's Day all day long starting with a great breakfast. Not only is this breakfast fun to eat, but your preschooler will have a fun time helping you make it for your entire family. A great way to show your family you love them.
I'm
Mary Beth P. Adomaitis, the Preschool Activities writer for Preschoolrock.com. As a mom of a preschooler, I love hearing from other parents and teachers of preschoolers. If you have any preschool activity ideas, suggestions or questions, feel free to
contact me.
Helpful Tips for Parents - Connect activities to real life: cooking math, laundry color sorting, grocery store counting. Embedded learning is the most transferable kind. - Set out activity materials before you invite your child to play — a prepared space is more inviting and leads to longer, deeper engagement. - Follow your child's lead. If they transform the planned activity into something else entirely, that redirect shows creative thinking — go with it. - Outdoor activities should be a daily priority year-round. Research consistently links outdoor time to better attention, mood, and sleep in preschoolers. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What activities are best for a preschooler with high energy? High-energy preschoolers benefit most from activities that have a physical component: outdoor obstacle courses, dancing, chalk activities, nature scavenger hunts, and water play. When indoor time is required, use the whole body: yoga poses, freeze dance, and rolling/throwing activities in a hallway. Matching the activity intensity to the child's energy level prevents meltdowns far better than expecting stillness. ### Can preschoolers direct their own activities, or do they need adult guidance? Preschoolers benefit from both self-directed and adult-guided activities. Self-directed play produces the most creative and deeply personal outcomes. Adult-guided activities introduce materials, techniques, and concepts children wouldn't discover independently. The ideal balance is roughly 2/3 self-directed and 1/3 adult-scaffolded. The worst approach is constant adult-direction of all activities — it eliminates agency and creative thinking. Related reading: See also our sorting activities and our science experiments for more ideas on this topic.
