Some random, silly ideas for all those hearts you either already have lying around or plan to cut out:
- Cut out some hearts from solid colored paper and some from fun patterned paper. Try to make sets of two that share a similar pattern/color.
- Give each child a heart. Have them hold them up/wave them around while you sing Skinnamarink and/or You Are My Sunshine (both songs can be found on one of my favorite cd’s, Six Little Ducks from Kimbo).
- Do a heart freeze dance. Just do a fun freeze dance (one of my favorite versions, Silly Dance Contest, can be found on Jim Gill Sings the Sneezing Song) and when they freeze, the kids should hold up their paper hearts, or hold them over their chests.
- Sing ‘If your heart has some (name a color), blow a kiss” (tune: if you’re happy and you know it).
- Play Heart Commander–for example, say “if your heart has some blue, jump up and down” or if your heart has some yellow, turn in a circle”.
- When it’s time to bring the hearts back to you, play a heart matching game. Have the match for each heart on the flannel board, and let each child find the match to the one that they have. If you don’t have the time or inclination to do this with each child, you can just have a certain number of hearts on the flannel board, hold up a heart yourself and direct the kids to find the match. This is where making some of the hearts from printed paper comes in handy. You could of course decorate each heart with markers or puffy paint, but using patterned paper will save time.
And here’s a game idea, a variation on the popular Little Mouse Little Mouse activity:
Cut out a small heart. Gather several flannel animals and place half of them on the flannel board. Hide the heart behind one of the animals. Choose one animal from the half that aren’t on the flannel board and tell the kids that the animal is looking for it’s best friend, and you’ll know that you’ve found the friend when you find the heart behind it. Then play just like Little Mouse–the kids suggest an animal, you look behind it, repeat until the heart is found. Then hide the heart again and move onto the next best friend-seeking animal. This one is quick and easy, because you can just use animals from other flannel boards. I made several animals from the Pet Voices flannel in Felt Board Fingerplays by Liz and Dick Wilmes, for just such a situation.
Happy hearts day!
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