What To Do With All Of Those Valentine Cards

My son is 4 and had his first Valentines party at preschool.

He came home with lots of Valentines... but not much interest in them.

So I wanted a way to get him to take some time to look at them.

Here is what we did.

First we bagged the candy up and saved that loot for later. Took off any tattoos and choose one to put on, and checked out the cool new pencil collection he scored.

We got out a small paper punch. This worked on his fine motor skills. I would read the card and he would punch a hole in it once I read it. He made the rule after I read the first card that I had to read them first before the hole could be punched.

I got out a pipe cleaner, it just happened to be red and white candy cane stripe so it worked well with Valentine's Day colors.

Again for some good fine motor skill practice she strung all of his (manly boy type) Valentines cards onto the pipe cleaner.

Once all the cards were strung onto the pipe cleaner we looped it back onto itself to create a ring.

Now he can flip through and read his valentines cards whenever he wants to and they won't end up all over the house.

Next he went to work on the "girly" cards. He doesn't much care for Barbie, Hello Kitty or puppies wearing fairy wings. But he knew of someone who does. His 4 year old girl cousin who he thinks is great. So he went to work cutting up the girly valentines... (more fine motor)

 And glued them onto a larger card to give to her. She didn't have a preschool Valentines party so she was super excited about all the cool valentine images that decorated the card made for her. Especially the Barbie ones.

Now big sister has her Valentines Party tomorrow. I already have plans for her Valentines... That little reader of mine is always needing a bookmark and is constantly loosing track of them. Now she will have a whole pile of 30 ready to go by her bedside.