Brainstorm in Bloom: Heart Animal Valentine Holders (Valentine's Day Party)

Monday, January 20, 2014

Heart Animal Valentine Holders (Valentine's Day Party)

For Hornet’s Kindergarten class I had these paper plate valentine holders in my brain. It started because while organizing his teacher’s classroom closet (she told me I could, I promise I didn’t just dive right in) I found large stacks of paper plates (I hope they take that off the kindergarten list). I took some home to see what I could come up with. I originally thought I would do 2 of the heart paper plates back to back and thought they would stand up. They kept rolling over though and every idea I could think of to make them stand up sounded awful when I thought of duplicating it 25 times. So the paper plate hearts stapled to a brown paper bag is what I came up with. They could also be stapled to a shoe box (which is what many classes bring in to decorate for their valentine holder).

The kids in the class made cute heart animals for the front of the paper plate heart! I really loved how these turned out! The book My Heart is

Like a Zoo by Michael Hall is perfect for this!

We had the whole morning (3 hours) for the party so we did this first. This could also be done a day or two in advance. The kids used the paper plate heart to put their crafts in and the paper bag for their valentines! It worked great! These Heart Animal Valentine Holders would work well with any elementary ages.

The Stuff:

Heart Paper Plate and Bag (for each kid):

-2 white paper plates (the cheap ones)

-paper bag (lunch size)

-adult scissors
-stapler

Heart Animals:-My Heart is Like a Zoo by Michael Hall
-construction paper hearts of various colors and sizes

-scraps of colored paper
-googly eyes

-kid scissors

-glue

The Prep (adult):

Heart Paper Plate and Bag (do in advance of party):

1. Cut top part of a heart out of one paper plate.

2. Staple heart paper plate and whole paper plate together.

3. Staple heart paper plate holder to paper bag. Make sure the heart paper plate holder is at the bottom of the paper bag. Don’t worry if it seems a little tippy when the bag is open -once it has a couple valentines it stays right up.

Heart Animals:
1. Cut out some colored hearts (not a lot, the kids will cut some too.

2. On tables put plate of colored hearts, construction paper scraps, googly eyes, scissors and glue.
3. Have a Heart paper plate/bag ready for each kid.

The Fun (kids):

1.Read the class My Heart is Like a Zoo. Discuss the different heart animals! This really is a cool book!

2. Teach the kids how to cut out a heart by folding a piece of paper in half, holding the folded part and cutting a curve to look kind of like a D.

3. Have the kids go to their seats (if not already) and let them use the supplies to create Heart Animals! It is amazing to see what their creative brains come up with!