Felt Hearts to Make With Toddlers
Toddlers love the soft, fuzzy texture of felt, which also makes an easy craft material for little hands to work with. Create simple, adorable felt heart crafts with your toddler to give as Valentine gifts or to decorate your home. Start by cutting hearts from felt squares in different sizes and colors. Provide your toddler with safety scissors so she can practice making felt hearts, too. Trace or draw the hearts onto felt fabric with a marker for your child to use as a guide. Her heart cutouts might not be perfect, but they̵7;ll be one of a kind, for sure.
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Heart Mobile
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A heart mobile is a simple, mess-free toddler craft that encourages fine motor skills. All you need is a paper plate, some yarn or string, a hole-punch and felt heart cutouts in different sizes. Help your toddler draw hearts onto the bottom of the plate with big crayons. Provide stencils for her to trace neater shapes. Or, cut a heart shape from the paper plate and have her color it. Once the plate is decorated, punch holes in the bottom. Punch holes at the top of felt hearts, too. Help your toddler string a piece of yarn through the hole in each heart and tie off at one end with a knot. Then, take the opposite end of the yarn, and thread and tie it through a hole in the plate. Repeat until all the holes are threaded and the plate dangles with felt hearts. Punch a final hole at the top of the plate and hang above a doorway, or in a window.
Felt Heart Necklaces
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Felt heart necklaces require a bit of stitching with needle and thread, but toddlers can help make these wearable crafts with adult guidance and supervision. Stitch two felt hearts that are the same size together, leaving a small opening at the bottom. Instruct your child to stuff cotton stuffing inside the heart. Once it's stuffed, stitch it closed. Stitch the center of a long ribbon to the top of the heart and tie the ends loosely around your toddler̵7;s neck. Make sure the ribbon is long enough to lift the necklace over your child̵7;s head without untying it.
Game Pieces
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With a little imagination, you can turn a surplus of felt heart cutouts into useful game pieces to help teach your child important developmental skills. Use the hearts to encourage counting, sorting by colors or creating patterns. Draw pairs of simple pictures on large hearts and use them to play Go Fish. Or, draw a basic grid on a large piece of paper and use the hearts to play Tic-Tac-Toe.
Other Ideas
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Cutting, folding, coloring and gluing are basic craft skills that also encourage young children̵7;s fine motor development. Provide heart-shaped doilies and help your toddler glue felt hearts into the center of the doilies. Use them as wall decor, greeting card embellishments, bookmarks or coasters for beverages. Help your toddler write each letter of her name onto separate felt hearts with nontoxic fabric markers, and string them together with yarn for personalized garland. Or, turn felt hearts upside down and encourage your child to piece them together to make a bear or mouse shape. Glue the pieces down and embellish with other craft materials to create a face, ears and tail.
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