Welcome to our Valentines blog. There are different ideas as to where or how the celebration of Valentine's Day began. One of the main theories was that there was a priest, St. Valentine who served during third century Rome. During that time, the Emperor Claudius II was thought to have said that single men made better soldiers than those that were married and outlawed marriage for all young men serving in his army. Allegedly, St. Valentine decided this wasn't fair and chose to marry young couples secretly. When Emperor Claudius II was made aware of Valentine's actions he had him put to death. To celebrate Valentines Day we have outlined our top 3 child friendly valentine activities below.
Activity 1 – Make heart-shaped crepes
What you need: 1 cup all-purpose flour, 2 eggs, 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup skim milk, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, 2 tablespoons melted butter.
Directions:
1. Grease a nonstick pan with a little bit of cooking oil.
2. In a large bowl, whisk flour and eggs together.
3. Add milk and water, gradually, whisking in between each addition.
4. Whisk in vanilla; then add melted butter.
5. Using a 1/4 cup measuring cup, pour batter onto the pan so it covers the base.
6. Cook on medium-high heat for 1-1/2 minutes, and then flip, cooking an additional minute.
7. Place crepes on a hard surface to cool.
8. Repeat until all the batter has been used.
9. Using different size heart shaped cutters, (or cut out heart shapes).
10. Serve with delicious fresh fruit, or whipped cream!
Activity 2 – Create your own heart shaped magnets
What you need: 1 cup flour, 1 cup salt and up to 1 cup water
Directions:
1. Mix the water and salt together.
2. Slowly add the water and mix until the dough comes together.
3. Add flour to the WORK surface
4. Roll out the dough to ¼ inch thick
5. Cut shapes with cookie cutter/s or simply free style it!
6. Place the dough on a baking sheet and cook at 200 degrees F for 2-3 hours.
7. Keep an eye on the dough and make sure it doesn’t burn
8. When the pieces have cooled down they are ready to paint!
Activity 3 – Create your own family appreciation tree
What you need: Different types of paper, glue, pens, scissors
Directions:
1. Trace each family member's hand and arm on a piece of paper
2. Cut the arms out (the paper arms – not the real ones!)
3. Using different coloured paper, cut out large hearts for leaves.
4. Give each person a number of blank hearts, and ask them to write a note for each member of the family.They should write something that they love about them or complete the sentence, “I love ______ because . . . ” (Children can dictate their notes to someone else to write!)
5. Sort the finished hearts by person and glue them onto the hand/arm trees.