For the past few years, I’ve made this fun card/craft with my students. This year, I added a fun, simple book to the plan. It lends itself well to this craft and both are relatively quick (depending on the student/number of students) so they can be done in the same session.
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First, I start by reading the book “Happy Valentine’s Day, Mouse!” by Laura Numeroff. It’s great for targeting simple nouns, Valentine’s Day vocabulary, and labeling verbs/answering “what doing” questions. Since some of my preschoolers still need visual to complete these tasks, I made this “mini” book companion for this book. I’m calling it a “mini” book companion because it is no-frills. This is a simple book, so I kept the companion materials simple as well.
It contains visuals for nouns:
verbs:
and sentence formulation:
I also included a black-ink only summary/sequencing page depicting all of Mouse’s friends, for whom he makes valentines. It’s perfect for sending home to show what you’ve done that day and encourage carryover.
You can find it in my TpT store.
Next, we complete the Valentine’s Day card, just like Mouse was doing in the story. You will need the following supplies:
red gelatin powder, liquid glue, a paintbrush, cardstock or construction paper in various colors, & the free card template.
You can find the free template in my TpT store here.
First, I always let students choose which color paper they want. We also discuss who they will give their card to. Then, students must put glue inside the heart.
Sooooooo many of my students have goals to follow two-step directions. When targeting this skill, I like to *lightly* draw various shapes/letters (in pencil) on the inside of the heart. Students must follow the direction, “Put glue on the triangle, then put glue on the circle.”
Once the heart has tons of glue on it, we use a paintbrush to spread it all around. The last step is to pour the powder gelatin onto the glue.
You don’t need a lot of the powder, but trust me, it will smell DELICIOUS! That stuff is potent! Good enough to eat 🙂
Both of these activities make for a fun therapy session that targets a variety of goals. I hope you can use one of both of these ideas in your therapy room!
