Map of their heart

Today was my day to teach Grace's Brownie troop, and I thought that I would try to do something with Valentine's day in mind. Last year I saw this post over at Playful Learning and had been wanting to try it with the children. This seemed like the perfect opportunity, but I wanted to include Harris so he and I did a practice run before Brownies. I love how they turned out! The children all seemed to enjoy them and they were beautiful to look at!

I started by reading/discussing the book, My Map Book by Sara Fanelli. This book doesn't really have a story to read but rather has pages of maps that are childlike, unique and of various objects and places (neighborhood, tummy, room, etc.).

After we looked at the book we drew our own map of our heart. We talked about how what we hold near and dear to our hearts is unique to each of us. The children wrote what they hold close to their hearts and then used watercolor paint to color each area in. This is definitely an activity that can be used with a wide range of ages. I will most certainly do it again!

P.S. I also had to provide snack. I brought a popcorn, white chocolate and M&M (in Valentine colors, of course) snack and it was delicious! Everyone really, really liked it! The bonus was that it was super easy to throw together. I got the recipe here (and I doubled it).