by Barbie L.
Since we’ve been staying home I’ve been experimenting with ways to get the most child entertainment with the fewest supplies and the least prep. Today, I present to you a Heart-making/Heart Hunt Game/Light Catchers/Paper Chain Patterns craft series. We did all this in one day, but it could easily be stretched over a couple days. My kids would have gladly played the heart hunt game all day long!
Overview
- Have your child cut, color-match, and trace to create a heart hunt activity.
- Heart hunt! Stick the hearts around the house and have your child find them. Then have them hide then for you. Then sit back and let siblings set up heart hunts for each other as long as they’re willing (which was a long time for us!)
- While they’re busy finding hearts, use tissue paper, packing tape, and the leftover paper from making the heart hunt to set up an invitation to craft.
- Make no-mess lightcatchers!
- Use the last strips of leftover paper to encourage your child to make a paper chain with a repeating color pattern.
Materials
- Easel Paper (or another large sheet of paper)
- Several different colors of paper
- Markers, crayons, or other colorful writing implements
- Scissors
- Masking Tape
- Packing tape
- Tissue paper (light catchers only)
- Scotch tape (paper chains only)
Heart Hunt: Making and Playing
- Fold the colored paper in half and draw half-hearts along the crease. We did one big heart and one little heart per color.
- Ask your child to cut along the line to cut out full hearts. Keep the leftover paper to make light catchers (instructions below).
- Have your child find a marker or crayon to match each color of paper, then ask them to trace each heart onto the easel paper.
- To give this game more longevity stick a piece of packing tape to the middle of each traced heart on the easel paper.
- Stick a loop of packing tape to the back of each colored heart and hide them around a room (or your whole home) for your child to find and stick in the appropriate spot on the easel paper. If your child has siblings model giving lots of clues and treating as more of a cooperative activity than a fierce competition—if they learn to play it this way you won’t have intervene as much later.
- Now, have your child hide the hearts for you. Then, if they have a sibling, get them to create heart hunts for each other while you step aside and get back to work.
Light Catchers
- While kids are busy hunting for hearts dig some colorful tissue paper out of your gift wrapping supplies and cut it into small pieces.
- Press clear contact paper or strips of packing tape over the heart-shaped holes in the leftover colored paper from the heart hunt.
- Place everything out on a craft table sticky-side-up as an invitation to craft.
- Have your kids stick pieces of tissue paper all over the sticky contact paper or packing tape. My two-year-old kept crumpling up the tissue paper and it still turned out okay, so it’s hard to go wrong.
- If your child is old enough to cut, have them look at the non-sticky side of the paper to cut a border around the heart (otherwise you can do the cutting).
- Stick the hearts to the window as light catchers!
Paper Chain Patterns
- Not done with that paper yet! Cut strips out of any leftover colored paper and start making a paper chain with a color pattern.
- Point out the pattern to your child and challenge them to keep it going. My daughter is much more motivated making a paper chain with a pattern than making one that’s all one color.
