I decided that we needed some kind of Valentine’s Day activity to do, instead of just crafty and artsy ideas.
We did a heart hunt last year, with great success.
But this year, I wanted to make Henry think about love a little.
So I came up with a Hunt for Love.
To start, we needed to make plain white paper bags pretty so its ready for some love, right?
George was around and awake, so we wanted to include him and have him decorate a bag too.
I quickly came up with something that’s colorful, edible and can be painted with.
Yogurt.
I split it up into four dishes [two for each of the boys] and added purple and pink food coloring to each of them.
Ta-da. Done. Edible Finger paint. Super fast. Super easy.
[Or you can make this awesome Homemade Edible Finger Paint that has a gel consistancy.]
The boys loved this paint!
George might have loved it too much and ate quite a bit…
But it was a lot of fun.
After decorating our bags with paint. Henry and I embellished ours with glitter.
I cut out a heart stencil from a scrap piece of paper.
Henry shook the glitter on over it, and a the glitter stuck nicely to the wet yogurt paint!
I cut out a heart stencil from a scrap piece of paper.
Henry shook the glitter on over it, and a the glitter stuck nicely to the wet yogurt paint!
So we had made our plain white paper bags… pretty!
After a couple days of letting the paint dry, we got around to our Hunt for Love.
[FYI: the bags ripped a little when I opened them up. I should have opened them right away when they were done painting and stuffed them with newspapers.]
Within seconds of my handing the boys their paper Valentine’s bags…
George ripped his to shreds.
This kept George busy though!
Meanwhile, Henry and I worked on filling our bags with things we love.
I tried to focus on Who we love, instead of material objects.
This was a little abstract for Henry since we couldn’t physically put a person that we loved into these small little paper bags.
I wasn’t too worried about it, and let Henry fill his up as he pleased.
Instead of telling him how to do this the way I had intended…
As I filled mine up, I made suggestions by saying what I was putting in my bag and who it reminded me of.
Such as, “I love Dad, so I’m going to put this cookie in my bag. The cookie reminds me of Dad because he works at the bakery.”
or…
“This letter G reminds me of George because George starts with G.”
After a couple of these examples, Henry caught on a little bit.
He grabbed the letter M and put it in for Mom!
Along with…
His red combine, the grain truck and other favorite toys of his…
It was a fun little activity for Valentine’s Day to talk to Henry about people we love. It was also neat to see him think in an abstract way, and glad he caught onto it, at least a little.
Other Paper Bag Activites we’ve done:
[This last one isn't technically made from a paper bag,
but I had initially made a test one from a brown paper bag!]
This paper bag activity is a part of Tinkerlab’s Paper Bag Challenge! [See all of Tinkerlab's Creative Challenges!] Click through the paper bag activities, crafts, and so on below. Add to it if you’ve done a fun activity with the kids with a Paper Bag! [Or share it in the comments.]
Many of the blogs participating in the Paper Bag Challenge:
Join us!
Paint Cut Paste, Imagination Soup, Hands On: As We Grow, Child Central Station, Putti Prapancha, Irresistible Ideas forPlay-Based Learning, TeachPreschool, The Chocolate Muffin Tree, Nurture Store, Small Types,Make Do & Friend, The Imagination Tree, Toddler Approved, Red Ted Art, Kids in the Studio, Rainy Day Mum, Glittering Muffins, Sense of Wonder, Mom To 2 Posh Lil Divas, Come Together Kids, My Creative Family, Kitchen Counter Chronicles, A Mom With A Lesson Plan, Angelique Felix, The Golden Gleam, Clarion Wren, Living at the Whitehead’s Zoo, Let Kids Create, De tout et de rien, PlayDrMom, Creativity My Passion, Kiwi Crate, Tinkerlab
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Henry is 3 years. George is 1 year.
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About Jamie Reimer
Oh I admire your thought, patience and resourcefulness, Jamie
This is such a cute way to have the little ones think about the 'people' they love. I love the yogurt paint. I used to make for P when she was this age…
I love that you created an activity for the challenge. Filling the bags with love is a great idea.
such a cute idea & a great way to think about those the kids love. fantastic!
Darling idea Jamie!! We love any activity that has to do with a hunt at our house!
LOVE the bags of love idea, but a question about the yogurt paint: Would it smell bad after a while? Or is it okay once it dries?
Summer — the yogurt never left a smell. It dries really quickly and is actually kind of 'crispy'. But no smell that I noticed.