ivey league homeschool: what we did for LOVE!

So last week this happened.

Still a novelty for me, having grown up mostly in Florida, but I have to say, after being stuck inside for days on end (ice is slippery, as it turns out!), the novelty wears off.  Since my husband was also home for a few days, I took advantage of the extra help and got a lot of Etsy orders done.

Of course Caleb needed some hands-on stuff to do (poor kid can only watch Olympic coverage on TV for so long), so I took advantage of the upcoming holiday to do a few fun (yet boyish) Valentine's activities.

First, we tried that thing on Pinterest where you fashion a toilet paper tube into a heart and use it as a stamp.  I had to use a paper towel roll that I cut in half, and I had to put tape around the heart once it was formed, but it worked pretty well.

Caleb was discouraged at first since his hearts weren't exactly heart-shaped.  He does this thing now where he says, "I'm just gonna give up" with a dramatic pout on his face.  Ironically all those books and songs that talk about never giving up sometimes have the opposite effect on him (almost as if it never occurred to him that giving up was an option until he was encouraged NOT to).  Silly boy!  I told him to keep trying, and he ended up loving it.  Especially when the colors mixed.

Next I just cut out a bunch of hearts for him so he could glue them into a collage.  I would have made him cut the hearts out himself (and thus shown him that hearts are symmetrical), but he's not there yet with his scissor skills.  However his glue stick skills are stellar.

Then we made a "lovebug."  I really want Caleb to learn how to spell his name soon, or at least recognize it if it's on something.  I put a letter on each heart and asked him which one went where.  He got C and A right, but needed help on the others.  Progress!

Finally, something extra special.  Caleb loves helping me make stuff in the kitchen, so I promised him we'd make special cookies for Valentine's Day.  I have a few heart-shaped cookie cutters, and found a cake mix cookie recipe where you can roll out the dough and use cutters on it. We used strawberry cake mix, resulting in some very yummy heart cookies.

Recipe source

The kid even helped me clean up afterwards.  Score!

So that's what we did for Valentine's.  Nothing too frilly or pink (unless you count the cookies).  :o)