🎓 Skills Your Child Will Develop
- 🥦 Healthy Food Knowledge — Learning about different foods, food groups, and what nutrients do in the body builds the food literacy that supports a lifetime of informed, health-conscious eating choices.
- 😊 Positive Relationship with Food — Joyful, pressure-free food experiences build the positive relationship with eating that underlies lifelong nutritional health — and is far more protective against disordered eating than any restriction-based approach.
- 🍽️ Independence & Life Skills — Learning to serve themselves, pour a drink, or prepare a simple snack builds practical independence and the self-care capability that kindergarteners need to manage their own nutrition during the school day.
- 💬 Vocabulary Expansion — Nutrition activities introduce rich vocabulary — nutrients, protein, fiber, harvest, ferment, season — expanding language range in a domain that connects directly to science, social studies, and health literacy.
Valentine's Day is coming up! Spend a special day sharing love and friendship with your preschooler. You don't have to go overboard with candy, though. Make a day full of healthy snacks and meals in a Valentine's Day theme. Then choose one special sweet treat. Use real food in the colors red, white and pink, heart shaped food, and friendship themes for a fun and healthy Valentine's Day.
Featured Preschool Valentine's Day Recipes and Snack Ideas
Preschool Valentine's Day Treat - Meringue Clouds
Bright white and airy, meringue clouds make a sweet Valentine's Day treat when garnished with dried cranberries. Made with just a few basic ingredients, meringue clouds will delight preschoolers as egg whites and sugar are transformed into white clouds.
Sweet Potato Muffins
These muffins are sweet to eat and healthy, too! Made with fresh sweet potatoes and whole wheat flour, these are a great part of any preschooler meal or snack. Make them in mini-muffin pans and you've got the perfect portion size as well.
Healthy Preschool Valentine's Day Snacks
Create a fun and healthy preschool Valentine's Day with these Valentine snack ideas. Use red fruits and vegetables and heart shapes in your preschool friendship and color themes this Valentine's Day.
Featured Preschool Product
Valentines Picture Frame Gift
Looking for a preschool Valentine's Day gift for family and friends? Visit Expressly Yours! Photo Expressions for a one of a kind Valentine's Day gift frame. Each frame fits a 3 1/2" X 5" photo and has an easel back for easy display. Gift boxes are also available to make it even more special. Order your frames today!
Around PreschoolRock.com
Treat Holder Valentine Preschool Craft
No need to buy expensive Valentine’s Day gifts for family, friends and teachers. Just make up some of these Special Valentine Treat Holders and fill it with your valentine’s favorite sweets. An empty toilet tissue tube, aluminum foil and a few other basic supplies are all you need to make this fun Valentine’s Day Preschool Craft.
Who's My Valentine Preschool Game
Can your preschooler guess who the secret valentine is? Just match a Who’s My Valentine game card to someone on the template! Make the game more challenging by adding pictures from magazines!
Books for Preschoolers - Be Mine, Be Mine, Sweet Valentine
By Sarah Weeks, Illustrated by Fumi Kosaka
Preschoolers will love diving under the flaps to explore hidden illustrations in this sweet Valentine’s Day book. Whether you’re an otter, anteater, or dog, a perfect Valentine’s Day gift exists! The fun, rhyming text will have preschoolers trying to guess what each gift will be.
The USDA MyPlate recommendation for preschoolers is 1–2 cups of vegetables per day (about 2–3 servings). For reference, a serving for a preschooler is approximately 2–3 tablespoons (their palm full). Because preschoolers have small stomachs, frequency of offering matters as much as serving size. Offer vegetables at every meal and snack across the day rather than trying to deliver all servings in one sitting.
Most pediatric nutrition organizations do not recommend routine multivitamin supplementation for preschoolers eating a reasonably varied diet. The nutrients most likely to be deficient: vitamin D (supplement with 600 IU/day unless child gets >15 minutes of direct sunlight daily), iron (check ferritin levels at well-child visits), and omega-3 fatty acids (supplement if child doesn't eat fish 2x/week). Discuss specific supplementation with your pediatrician based on your child's individual diet and lab results.
