Valentine's Day

I'm covered in hearts on this one! There are good Valentine's day books out there, but guess what? Last minute planning = checked out books. This program was heavy on the flannel board and interactive rhymes.

Valentine Song
I've had this for years & I've been using it for years! (Not sure of its original source). I confess to adoring this song & sometimes I sing it to myself in the middle of July.  I picked some kids to line up, hold the objects, and then we sang the song together. It can also be done as a flannel board story.

Valentine Song: to the tune of Love me Tender
You're my rainbow, you're my star, you're my bright red cookie jar.
You're my goldfish, you're my pie, you're the apple of my eye.
You're my daisy, you're my vine, you're my one true Valentine!

Valentine Tree Rhyme from here.  Since my storytime audience is typically 25 or more, after we "shook the tree" together, I gave them each a heart sticker.  If the audience was smaller, it would be super cute to give them actual Valentines off the tree.

I used the colored valentine song from here.  This is a super cute idea and it really can be used in a variety of storytime scenarios.  This was very popular with the kids.

Book: The day it rained hearts by Felicia Bond (so precious!) Love this book.  It is cumbersome for a flannel story, though, so be warned; it has a lot of pieces.  The pictures in the book can be small, so I typically read the book and then use the flannel pieces simulatenously, almost in place of the pictures.

Valentine Match Game.  I believe lots of people do the heart match up game...I have a version I've used for a while and it decided to disappear on me.  I made some quick hearts in Publisher and gave one half to the storytime kids and the other half was on the board.  The kids got to come up and match them.  This was, by far, the most popular thing we did!