Easy Valentine's Day crafts for kids

Valentine’s Day is often associated with love and romance, but it’s also about friendship and celebrating the people we care about. For little ones, it’s a perfect opportunity to spread some cheer among friends and family with homemade valentines, tasty treats, and other fun surprises.

Whether it’s your favorite holiday or it’s just another day, there are tons of ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day with your entire family! Here are some easy crafts and activities for you and your kiddo to do together. It’s a perfect way to spend some quality time together.

Pro tip: If you have a favorite craft you frequently do at home, it’s easy to turn it into a Valentine's Day activity for kids. Find ways to incorporate hearts and traditional valentines colors like red, pink, and white. Does your kiddo love paper airplanes? Decorate your plane with heart stickers! Are they nuts about plasticine? Make Valentine’s Day treats for a pretend bakery! Even though you may have done that activity together a hundred times, turning it into a Valentine's Day activity makes it feel even more special.

Valentine's Day activities for preschoolers

Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to talk to your kiddo about love, friendship, family, and what the connection between you means to you. Kids will be receptive to anything related to this special day, amplifying the message. While doing so, you can also get your hands on a little craft activity!

Valentine’s Day is the perfect time to talk to your kiddo about love, friendship, family, and the important people in their lives. Plus, helping your kiddo to reflect on the people they appreciate is a perfect opportunity to help your little one understand the concept of gratitude. It’s a great conversation starter while you’re working on super fun craft activities together!

Just because you’re having fun doesn’t mean that you can’t also improve your little one’s literacy skills at the same time. Here’s a simple activity to try: a heart made of beads! You’ll need some colorful beads, letter beads, pipe cleaners, and a dash of imagination.

This activity will work your kiddo’s fine motor skills and they’ll get a chance to practice their spelling, too. To start off, make a plan of what you want to make with your pipe cleaner. You can turn the pipe into any shape you want, but heart-shaped pipe cleaners are always an excellent choice for Valentine’s Day! You can have your kid spell out their name, or the name of the person they are going to gift the heart to. In between the letters in the name, add colorful beads. Once you’re done, twist the bottom of the heart to keep the beads in place, and there you have it! You’ve got an adorable Valentine’s Day gift that also helped your kiddo with their fine motor and literacy skills without them even realizing it.

DIY Valentine's Day cards for kids

What’s Valentine’s Day without cards? Cards are a staple for this holiday, and writing valentines is a great way to express your friendship and appreciation for someone. The tradition of sending valentines goes back to the 18th century when these beautiful handmade cards were decorated with flowers, symbols representing love, and a couple of lines of poetry. Now, with pre-printed valentines available pretty much everywhere during this time of year, it’s pretty easy to spread the love with some cards!

Sure, any valentine is a welcome surprise…but what’s better than a handmade valentine from a special kiddo in your life? Here’s a fun DIY Valentine’s Day card idea to try to brighten someone’s day!

Flowers are another Valentine’s Day staple, and it’s always so much fun to give someone you care about a beautiful bouquet of flowers. Why not make your own bouquet of flowers on a card? (Bonus: They’ll last a lot longer, too!)

For this craft, you’ll need construction paper, colorful tissue paper or scraps of wrapping paper, a page of newspaper for the cone of the bouquet, scissors, crayons, glue, and ribbon or twine. It’s super easy to make!

• Fold your construction paper into half lengthwise and draw a half heart shape. Cut it to get a heart when you open up the paper.
• Keep the heart folded, and help your kiddo draw some stems on one side of the heart with your crayons. Cut your scrap wrapping paper or tissue paper into whatever shapes you like. These could also be heart-shaped or shaped like your favorite flowers! Glue them on the top of the stems.
• To make the newspaper wrapping, cut a couple of triangle pieces and glue them at the bottom of the flowers. This will look like the flowers came just from the flower market! You can wrap the bottom with twine or a ribbon.
• Finally, write your message on the inside! You can find the detailed instructions here.