Positively an Adorable Valentine's Day Project!

This is an adorable little project I just did with my 4-year old at home and then repeated it at school with my Kindergartners. Even my fifth graders wanted in on the action!

Most of my supplies I was able to find in the Dollar Spot section at Target. Some things I already had, and some you can make if you're feeling saucy! I used 12x18 sheets of white paper, paper heart doilies, foam heart shapes in various sizes (*you can also use paper hearts, but I found the paper hearts move when you spray them. The foam hearts have a little more weight to them!), possibly die-cut hearts from your Ellison Machine (I used tag board for those), and cosmetic sprayers found in the travel toiletries section at Target as well.

For this project I also used liquid watercolor paints from Sax Arts & Crafts diluted with a little bit of water. If this is out of your budget, or you don't have them, you can always use diluted tempera paints.

First, have the kids arrange the doilies, foam hearts, and tag board hearts on the paper. I think it looks best if they don't overlap the shapes (looks weird when you take the hearts off!)

Next, use the spray bottles to spray the paper. I used red, coral, and violet for this project to keep it in the "Valentine's" theme, but any colors will do. I also lined my tables with rolls of newsprint so the kids can spray the edges of the papers without worrying about a mess!

Take off your doilies and hearts...and VOILA! A gorgeous lesson which teaches students about positive space (space taken up by color) and negative space (empty space left by their now missing shapes) on their papers! I re-used the paper doilies every day for a week and only a few went completely limp. I washed the foam pieces off and stored them for next year!

A great project with promising results! (I also did a leaf version of this project, you can check it out on my classroom blog here.

Joanna Davis is the author and voice behind her classroom blog We Heart Art and is inspired daily by the love her children show for creativity! You can check out more lesson plans on Facebook as well! Happy Early Valentine's Day!