HAPPY LOVE DAY!

Has the candy already started to overflow at your house? Let’s do something about this by

creating cute, festive Love Bugs! We were inspired from this craft from the blog My Home

Based Life, found here .

Items Needed:

Clothes Pin

Mini M&M’s- Individual Bags

Googly Eyes

Glitter

Glue Stick

Pipe Cleaner

A plate or napkin (in anticipation of a bit of a glittery mess!)

Markers or crayons (in case you want to avoid a glittery mess!)

Steps:

1. Cut the pipe cleaner in half.

2. Separate the M&M’s to either side within the bag. Then, fold and twist the pipe cleaner tightly around the center of the M&M bag. Leave the ends of the pipe cleaners open at the top, as this will become the antenna for the love bug.

3. Now it’s time to decorate the love bug! Swipe glue over the front of the clothespin to ensure the glitter will adhere to it, but be sure to leave the top (about ¼ of an inch) plain. This will help the googly eyes adhere better in a future step. If you’d like to avoid glitter with little ones (we get it!), we recommend coloring the clothes pin instead!

4. Select a glitter color (or colors) of your choice to decorate the clothes pin with! If you’d like to add even more flair to your love bug, you can color the clothes pin (stripes, stars, you name it!) prior to adding glitter. Get creative!

5. Place the two googly eyes on the top of the clothes pin, the area that was left without glue and glitter.

6. Open the clothes pin and place it in the middle of the the M&M, where the pipe cleaner is cinching it together.

7. Finally, twist the ends of the pipe cleaners to look like little antennas on your love bug!

3 Additional Valentine Activities for Home

Below are more themed activities to do at home! These can provide children additional opportunities to make connections with the themed vocabulary words and concepts.

• YouTube Read Alouds

  • As pediatric SLPs, we often stress the importance of reading. Are you looking to switch up shared book reading? Is there a book you may not have in your collection at home? Try YouTube read a louds! These are fun for everyone and allow you to pause and chat about what you’re learning together. Check out some of our favorites for Valentine’s Day below:

    • Pete the Cat- Valentine’s Day is Cool!

    • The Night Before Valentine’s Day

    • Amelia Bedelia’s First Valentine

Interested in additional Valentine’s Day book recommendations? Check out our list here!

• Valentine Cards

  • Practice writing and spelling skills by creating some festive Valentine’s Day cards.

• Play a Game

  • Work on parts of speech with a Valentine’s Day Mad Lib. Check out this one here!

  • Enjoy some Tic-Tac-Toe with leftover Valentine candy.

We hope you have a wonderful day celebrating love and speech and language skills!

We’re OWL yours!

–The OWLS Therapy team