Storytime–Valentines Storytime

I usually find that Valentine’s Day books for kiddos are a little off. They still often focus on the traditional aspects of this holiday, so I tend to focus on more age-appropriate themes and concepts. Loving your grown-ups, loving yourself, and loving your community. There’s probably no getting around the hearts and some of the iconography, but I’ve tried to shift the focus a little bit. Here’s what I usually do for a holiday storytime.

Stories

I always make my storytimes interactive, so I like these board books because they have a lot of interactive elements in them and it keeps it silly. Sometimes the interactive element is hugging, so during these moments I tell my kiddos “they can hug their grown-ups, or hug themselves,” so kiddos don’t feel like they have to do that action.

“I Love You, Snugglesaurus” and “Bananas for You!” can have a lot of interactive elements like jumping, spinning, stomping, and singing–so those are my most recent go-tos. “A Kiss Like This” is another good one but the movements I would incorporate weren’t as strong, but it’s another good option.

Rhymes and Songs

Rhyme–Love You!

(This was an adaption of a song by Noel Coward called “Any Little Fish.” Was unable to find my original source for this adaption so let me know and I can credit you. This one has some movements and noises. Again this one can end with a hug, but you can either hug yourself or give a high five.)

A fish can swim,
and a bird can fly
A dog can bark,
and a baby can cry
A horse can neigh,
and a cow can moo
But all I can do,
is just love you!

Rhyme—Heart Rhyme

(I usually don’t do finger plays because that’s not my style, but I like this one since it fits the theme and were working on some more advanced hand coordination and instructions.)

I put my hands together
This is how I start.
I curve my fingers right around
And then I make a heart.

Our song that we do is “If You’re Happy and You Know It,” because one of the most important things we can do is love ourself, and this is a good holiday to remind ourselves of that. So this song is a natural fit.

Activity

For my storytime, I usually end on an activity instead of a craft, just because an experience is usually better and more rewarding than making something that gets thrown out. But this is a bit of a compromise between the two.

My Parks and Rec department suggested this activity a couple of years ago for a different program, so I’ve folded this into this particular storytime ever since. The idea is to make Valentines for a retirement center or similar organization to show love and care for an underserved local population. So for this part, I told my families that they would be making two cards–one to keep (if they wanted) and one to give to someone in the community. This always goes over really well and also makes a great social media post. One year, our retirement center returned the favor, and made bookmarks for us to hand out at the desk.

There’s two different giveaway Valentines I’ve done–one we use dot markers and the other we glue scrap paper onto paper, so working on some basic crafting skills too. Again I try to use words like “Like” instead of “Love” just because it downplays the holiday a little bit in my opinion.

For the card that they keep, I usually try to pair it with the skill we’re already working on so that I don’t need to get out extra supplies. Like my “Piece of My Heart” card pairs with “You’re the Glue” card.

So I’ll make this all available to download and take off all my specific branding so that it can be used for general use.

That’s it! For older kiddos, you can check out my Shark Valentine post here.

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