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Montessori Valentine’s Activities for Toddlers

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 Get ready for a whole lot of pink. I can’t help it pink is my favorite color and when it is getting close to Valentine’s Day, I get a little pink crazy. I hope you like pink, and I hope you enjoy our Toddler Valentines activities. From DIY blocks, peg dolls, and felt shapes, to heart play dough and flower arranging we are loving our weekly pink and red activities.

Valentine Activities for Toddlers

Fine motor skills for toddlers, Valentine's day fun, DIY activities, crafts, homemade play dough, blocks, Waldorf, Montessori www.naturalbeachliving.com

This is our Valentines table, I set it up when Baby Bell was taking her afternoon nap. I wanted it to be a nice surprise when she woke up. Like most toddlers, she loves activities and learning new things. So I tried to incorporate several different things that are good for a toddler to work on. Sensory, fine motor skills, listening skills, and more. So here you will see building blocks, a felt board and hearts, Valentine play dough, story stones, transferring pom poms, her color pegs, and flower arranging. She loved it all from the minute she saw the table.

Fine motor skills for toddlers, Valentine's day fun, DIY activities, crafts, homemade play dough, blocks, Waldorf, Montessori www.naturalbeachliving.com
These peg dolls I made for her for color recognition and play. For the next couple of weeks as you can probably tell, we are working on Pink and Red.
The story stones I thought would be fun, since they are very simple. Most contain a picture she can look at or one word, what I do (since she isn’t really talking yet) is we look at a stone and I tell her a short story (a few sentences) that has to do with the picture she is holding. If you have an older child that is talking then they can tell you a story about their rock. It is so much fun and really helps the child to use their imagination. If you would like to make your own story stones head over to My Little Bookcase for the easy directions and check out her blog.
Fine motor skills for toddlers, Valentine's day fun, DIY activities, crafts, homemade play dough, blocks, Waldorf, Montessori www.naturalbeachliving.com
Bells loved her heart-shaped play dough, I used my homemade recipe and added a little raspberry extract for the smell. The perfect Valentine touch, I thought. In the end, all of the hearts were balled up, but that’s okay, this was just for her to get those finger muscles working.
Fine motor skills for toddlers, Valentine's day fun, DIY activities, crafts, homemade play dough, blocks, Waldorf, Montessori www.naturalbeachliving.com

Working on Transferring pom pom balls was one of her favorite activities. She has been working on this for days, she really enjoys transferring anything.
Of course for a pink week, I had to put Bells in pink princess clothes. I can’t help myself.

Montessori Flower Arranging

Fine motor skills for toddlers, Valentine's day fun, DIY activities, crafts, homemade play dough, blocks, Waldorf, Montessori www.naturalbeachliving.com

Flower arranging is considered a practical life activity or lesson in the Montessori education, however, I truly believe each child can benefit from arranging flowers. For Bells, I wanted to use something sturdy that wouldn’t tip over as she was putting her flowers in. So I choose to use a mason jar, I hole punched the lid about 10 times for the holes and added water. Then Little B showed Bells how to take the flowers one by one and place them into a hole.

 

Fine motor skills for toddlers, Valentine's day fun, DIY activities, crafts, homemade play dough, blocks, Waldorf, Montessori www.naturalbeachliving.com

This was Miss Bells favorite activity of the week. She loves the pretty flowers and she did a great job arranging them. Don’t forget to let your children stop and smell the flowers. Life should not be rushed through, we could all learn from the children by taking time to enjoy the things around us.
Be sure to come back for part 2. It ended with a big surprise to momma.

Nature through a toddlers eyes.

nature-watching-valentine for toddlers

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