My goodness we cut things close this year. I’m not sure what happened… We had our idea weeks ago, our supplies were picked up in plenty of time, and somehow we started making Miss G’s class valentines just this evening. The night before Valentine’s Day. Oops.
While I usually tutor four afternoons / evenings a week, I took this week off and it’s been lovely. More than anything, it’s allowed Grae and I some quality time at home in the afternoons, which has been really nice. As a result, we’ve been doing all sorts of fun little spur of the moment activities and projects, which is exactly what this broken hearts number matching activity is.
When I asked Gracen what she’d kind of valentines she’d like to make for her friends this year, she quite surely responded with ‘Something fun with glow sticks!’, which is how our glow stick heart and arrow valentines came about.
This little project totally came about on a whim this morning while Miss G and I were hanging out at home, but I think it turned out adorably and Grae had a blast making her washi tape heart art piece, so I’m calling it a win. Not to mention that the project is great for building fine motor skills too, so double win.
After the success of last week’s play dough subtraction smash, I decided that we’d focus on another playful math activity this week, and since Miss G’s been all about getting going with Valentine’s Day stuff since we took down our Christmas tree, I thought we’d incorporate that too. While hearts were {of course} the first thing that popped into my mind, I wanted to switch things up a little, so an arrow addition matching game it was.
With nowhere to be this morning, Miss G and I declared it a pancake day. Her request? Making them heart-shaped. {Why not, right?} We whipped up a batch of our usual wholewheat flax and oat pancake batter and attempted to make it pink with the addition of beet juice. It didn’t work the way I was hoping it would {or at all really}, but oh well! We put our batter into the same squeeze bottle we use when we make spiderweb pancakes, and then simply created heart-shaped outlines and filled them in.
Gracen and I had so much fun with today’s art project that we actually ended up doing it twice! It’s the simplest technique, but the results are absolutely stunning and in this case, perfect for Valentine’s Day too! {Though my original thought was to use the pieces as art in Miss G’s bedroom…}
Gracen is all about holiday decorations. So needless to say, when we announced that it was nearly time to dismantle our tree and put our Christmas things away a while back, she was not really happy about it. After talking about why we put Christmas things away come January, she asked, ‘So what’s next then? Like what should we decorate for?’ Hahaha – my little planner. ☺
A little tradition we started back when Gracen was just 5 months old and we were living in Kuwait is an annual Valentine’s tea. Today we hosted our third celebration with a bunch of Grae’s good buddies, some awesome mamas, delicious treats, and some messy fun. The sun was shining, us mamas got to sneak in conversations in between chasing toddlers, and the kiddos played happily.
Here are some snapshots from our morning…
Tea.
Heart-shaped pretzels made especially for us by SweetSalt.
Banana berry muffins {adapted from this recipe}.
Mmmm… Fruit.
Strawberry crispy hearts.
Hearts.
Treats for the mamas.
Tea for toddlers.
Berry-scented play dough.
Hard at play.
Water bead fun.
Aftermath.
Crafting.
A happy girl post-party.
Kind of crazy that we’ve had two teas here in Vancouver and next year we’ll be back to where it all started, but I’m looking forward to it.
Take a peek at last year’s tea here.
♥
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I must admit, since creating our first batch of healthy{er} crispy rice treats, we’ve made several batches since. The good news is that through all of the ‘testing’, we’ve learned that they last really well in an airtight container on the counter, they can be made into fun shapes using silicon moulds and ice cube trays, and they can easily be cut into shapes with cookie cutters {all while holding their shape just as well as regular Rice Krispie treats do}. The one lesson we’ve learned along the way is that if you overdo the cereal, they turn out crunchier, more dry, and not nearly as yummy. Lesson learned.
When planning some of the treats we’d serve at our annual Valentine’s Tea, Gracen’s most enthusiastic suggestion was “Crispy treats! Valem-time ones!” Making the treats pink came to mind first, but since I’m not crazy about feeding Miss G a bunch of unnecessary food dyes, that got nixed shortly there after.
The next thing that came to mind was one of Grae’s favourite treats… Freeze-dried strawberries. We buy ours at Trader Joe’s, but I have seen them in other stores as well. They’re just strawberries, but the process of freeze-drying them causes them to be super crunchy and astronaut food-like.
I asked Grae if she’d like to experiment with making strawberry crispy rice treats, and she was on board all the way.
To get started, we took about a half a cup of freeze-dried strawberries, ground them to a powder in our food processor, and added them to the wet mixture while following our usual crispy rice treat recipe.
Of course, Miss G licked the cashew butter spoon, because, well… That’s probably the best part about helping with this recipe.
Once we’d combined the cereal and the wet mixture, we took another portion of freeze-dried strawberries, crumbled half into the mixture itself, and then sprinkled the other half on top of the mixture after pressing it down firmly on a baking sheet.
We let the mixture cool completely, then used a cookie cutter to cut out heart-shaped treats. Miss G liked helping with this job, but it required some serious muscle, so I had to help out.
It’s a simple twist, but so far the feedback’s been great… Strawberry crispy treat success! ☺
Healthier Crispy Rice Treats
Measure the brown rice syrup, cashew butter, ground freeze-dried strawberries, and maple syrup into a large pot. Warm over medium heat, stirring almost constantly. When the mixture is hot and liquidy (but not bubbling), add the vanilla, give it another quick stir, and remove the pot from the heat.
Add in the crispy rice cereal and mix well to ensure the cereal is evenly coated with the sticky mixture. Next, add in a 1/4 cup of the crumbled strawberries and stir to distribute them evenly.
Dump the mixture onto a parchment-line baking pan and press it down firmly. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup of freeze-dried strawberries on top of the mixture, and gently press them down into place.
Allow the mixture to cool completely (or almost completely). Use a cookie cutter to cut out heart-shaped treats.
Enjoy!
♥
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Today, while enjoying some downtime together as a family, I put together a quick and easy sugar cookie felt board set for Miss G… A sugar cookie cutting and decorating set. All it really required was a few sheets of the cheap {recycled from plastic bottles} felt, a pair of sharp scissors, a plastic cookie cutter, and about 40 minutes of {interrupted} time. Because Valentine’s Day is coming up, I went with a heart-shaped cutter, but any shape would be fun.
To start off, I traced the cookie cutter onto the tan felt several times, placing them as I’d cut out cookies from rolled dough (making sure to leave a decent amount of space between each). The only tricky thing is that in order to keep your ‘rolled dough’ piece intact, you have to very carefully cut the shapes out without cutting through the borders.
Here’s what you should have when your shapes have all been cut out.
Then I quickly rounded the edges to make the rolled dough piece look a little bit more realistic.
Next, I cut out smaller hearts in different colours (and two sizes) to act as the frosting.
The last {and easiest} job was creating ‘candy sprinkles’ by chopping up thin strips of felt.
Miss was dying to get her hands on her new game, and began placing the cookies into the dough immediately.
Then it was straight to cutting them out using her cookie cutter.
Next up – the best part… Decorating!
Almost as much fun as the real thing… If only felt cookies tasted delicious. ☺
You can find our easy and inexpensive felt board tutorial here and some of our other felt board games here.
♥
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After putting together our ‘Will you be my Valen-slime?’ favours this afternoon, Miss G and I got out a few things and put together a really simple Valentine-themed slime sensory tray.
Slime is just one of those things that never gets old. Miss G’s spent quite a lot of time playing with it in the past, but was every bit as thrilled to play with it again today.
Her favourite part of today’s set up was definitely the heart-shaped cookie cutters. She’d imprint a bunch of hearts, watch them slowly melt away, and then loudly exclaim, “MAMA! THEY DISAPPEARED!!” before making more.
My favourite part was that because this batch turned out just a tad firmer than our last, there was zero mess. It didn’t stick to her hands, it didn’t goop up the bowls and kitchen utensils, and it didn’t cling to her clothes. (A seemingly messy activity sans the mess = win!)
We left this out for most of the afternoon and evening, and Miss G came back to it again and again before it finally had to be sealed up just before dinner. But before that happened, she wanted a guarantee that her tray and container of slime would be left out and ready for her to enjoy first thing the next morning.
Okay, so not the most traditional of Valentine’s Day treats, but when you ask a two year old what she wants to give her friends for Valentine’s, you have to be open to the suggestions. And those just happen to be heart wands and sparkly slime this time around.
Luckily, fun-to-play-with slime is a cinch to make and requires ingredients we always have around the house. Plus, we’re slime experts after whipping up 50+ slime treats this past Halloween.
Detailed instructions can be found here, but basically all you have to do is mix the glue, glitter, food colouring, and some of the water together…
And the other bit of water with the Borax separately.
Then pour the two mixtures together, knead it together a bit…
And watch oozy gooey slime form. It’s honestly so easy that Miss G can do almost everything (save the measuring) on her own.
For packaging, we like using these 125 ml mason jars because they’re the perfect size and can be reused for something else afterwards (plus they’re pretty cute!)
Filling the jars with was Miss G’s favourite part of the process this time around, especially when she discovered that she could create all kinds of silly noises by forcing the slime down into the jars.
Though she’d asked for red slime with red sparkles, this is what our finished product looks like {even after using a half a bottle of liquid food colouring}. Luckily the pink and red combo is perfect for the occasion and Miss G was pleased with how it turned out.
For the tops, we created simple paper circle inserts that include a little ‘Valen-slime’ saying and a sparkly red heart. Here are a few close ups…
‘Be mine, Valen-slime.’
‘Be my Valen-slime.’
‘Will you be my Valen-slime?’
Surely we’re the first ever people to give out slime on a holiday centred around love and friendship, but who wants to be run of the mill anyways?
Want to make your own? Download our printables here:
Printable Valentine’s Day Slime Favour Labels
Sparkly Slime
(This is essentially the exact same recipe we used last time, but in a bigger batch. This recipe yields 24 – 26 mason jars of slime – perfect for a class of kids – or in our case, 12 mason jars and a big batch to use for sensory play.)