A "Lovely" Bookmaking Project

Ooh, it’s almost February and I’m making some heart-filled plans. I love Valentine’s Day!  Maybe because my husband brings me Chocolate Cheesecake every year, or maybe because it’s the only time I get to fill my house with pink, or get my kids to use the pink crayon for craft projects. (I’m the lone princess in a house full of blue-loving boys.) Anyway, in honor of the lovely upcoming holiday, I bring you a sweet and simple valentine literacy craft...

The "I Love" Book

  

Materials:

• Cardstock or heavy paper
• Stamp ink for heart making. (I recommend a pale color since you’re going to write on top of it. The red I used here is just a little too dark. Pink would be perfect.)
• A fine tip Sharpie marker
• Something to bind paper together to make a book. I just used a binder ring, but you could attach pages to a construction paper booklet, or use a blank book like these.

This is a flexible activity that works for many age groups and developmental levels.

Here’s the plan:

1. For each blank page, have the child name something he or she loves. Single words work best. (Mom, Dad, Lego…) Using two fingerprints, stamp a heart for each letter in the word.
2. Write the letters of the word on top of the heart using Sharpie. For my three year old, I asked what he loves and helped him stamp the correct number of hearts, then I wrote the letters for him. After I wrote a few, he was ready to make lots of his own pages, complete with his own “letters” written in each heart. Older preschoolers and kindergartners might need a little help figuring out how many hearts they need, but could handle the stamping and writing on their own. For those kids, I recommend brainstorming together and writing the words on a piece of scrap paper first, so they can count the number of hearts needed before stamping.
3. Make a cover using the same technique. We chose “Jack Loves” as our straightforward, (yet slightly unoriginal) title.
4. Bind it, and you’re done!
5. Read your book lots of times in February, and then save it forever as an adorable keepsake.

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Want more ideas to gear up for February 14? Today on Small Types you’ll find links to more Valentine’s Day project ideas, books and printable valentines. Or visit my Valentine’s Day board over on Pinterest. 

We'd love to hear from you! What's your favorite Valentine's Day project?

Erin Wing writes about creating a print-rich home at www.smalltypes.com.