February is here! And you know what that means…. Valentine’s Day! I thought I would give you some ways to stick some learning into Valentines activities. In my opinion there is no better way to do this than with books. Today I want to talk about two books that I use at out Speech/Language office:  The first book is a book for preschoolers The Kiss Box by Bonnie Verberg and Henry Cole.

In this book, mama is going out and she and her son try to find a way he can keep her kisses. After reading the book I take a small box, an envelope and a jar along with about ten heart shaped pieces of paper. I then ask them where are they going to put their kiss- in the box, the jar or in the envelope.

This is a good time to focus on expanding single words into phrases or sentences. If your little one happens to be working on a particular sound such as -g words or -l words you can find pictures or even just write words beginning with that sound as an extension to this activity. This is also a great book to get little ones prepared for separation from mom and dad.

A book that I like for school-aged children is Little Bear’s Valentine written by Else Holmelund Minarik.  In this book little bear discovers that he has a secret admirer. He tries to figure out who it might be as he is delivering his valentines. This book is a great way to address sequencing. Try making pictures of the different animals that he visits in this book and have your child put them in order and then try having them retell the story back to you in their own words. Having your child make his or her picture cards of the animals makes it even more fun.

Since the holiday falls on the weekend you may want to take time to do something this year that you wouldn’t do otherwise. Baking cookies is the first thing that comes to mind.  I love baking so I don’t mind making a batch of cookies from scratch. But you don’t have to get as fancy as the picture above. You can just grab a bag of cookie mix, or premade cookie dough from the grocery store. In fact if you are practicing sequencing or retelling-the directions on the back of the package are already broken down into steps. So that may be the way to go. If you are really in a pinch the bakery department of your grocery store would probably sell you plain cookies and a couple of colors of icing too.

A Valentine’s Day scavenger hunt is also a fun to do on a Saturday. Take ten hearts cut out of construction paper-perhaps you have the ones from last week’s activity or if you want have your kids cut out and color the hearts.

Then hide them around your house. Ask them where they found them “I found a heart in the dryer. ” For my school aged kids I ask them to hide them and then practice giving me step by step directions where I can find them.  I know that many people think that Valentines Day is a hyped up, commercial holiday that really only gets people to spend money. Perhaps that is true but think back to when you were in elementary school or even middle and high school. This was a fun holiday! I mean you get cards from all of your classmates, you get candy and sometimes a party! It was a great feeling. All I am saying is–enjoy the time and celebrate Valentines Day for what it is-a time to tell the ones close to us that we love them.

Adrienne Fuller, M.S.,CCC-SLP
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