The making of a heart...

I think one of my favorite things to discuss with children any time - but particularly around Valentine's Day are HEARTS. We talked a bit about the heart in our body and how it is important to carry blood and oxygen to our body...and put our hand into a fist and practiced having it "pulse" and used funny noises to pretend we were hearts beating. Children are insistent that the hearts in our body - must be heart shaped...otherwise why are they named hearts?

We did learn another verse to our shape song - this is about the shape of a HEART:

I'm a HEART (2 syllables) action: put your hands together cupping them like the letter 'C'

I'm a HEART - action: repeat

I have two parts - action: pull your hands apart

I have two parts - action: repeat

One is like the letter 'C' - action: bring your right hand in shaped like the letter 'C'

The other is like a backwards 'C' - action: bring your left hand in shaped like the letter 'C'

I'm a HEART - action: repeat as above

I have two parts! - action: repeat as above

The children laced their heart-shaped "mailboxes" in preparation for receiving valentines from their preschool friends (and are still awaiting to do so!!). It was fun to hear what colors the boys wanted for their ribbons...they were definitely into picking orange or greeen! The girls on the other hand - of course wanted pink! I was very impressed to continue watching how the children have worked on hand-eye coordination and how doing this small gross-motor activity has become second-hand to them - I'm sure the fathers or our preschool boys will be happy to hear that their sons are really becoming handy with their sewing skills! Think little missionaries in training and your heart might not beat so fast! :)