Inside: Put together a simple Valentine’s Day fine motor activity using water and droppers. The squeezing motion is a fun way to get the hands and fingers ready for writing!
If you are looking for a super easy way to strengthen fine motor activities during your Valentine’s Day theme, this is it!
We love using droppers with water to get the hands and fingers ready for writing.
We’ve used them at our water table in previous activities, such as when we washed farm animals, when dropping watercolors onto paper towels (so fun!), and when we made our spring chicks.
Each of these activities have been enjoyed by our busy toddlers and preschoolers because they love the motion involved.
Plus, putting together an activity using droppers is really easy!
This Valentine’s Day fine motor activity is easy, fun, and keeps young children busy for quite awhile.
Filling the Hearts Valentine’s Day Fine Motor Activity
Things can get pretty crazy around the holidays when we might put extra pressure on ourselves to come up with fancy activities.
But over my 2 decades of teaching I’ve realized that simple is much preferred over fancy by young children.
What they love most is the action that takes place during the activity.
This Valentine’s Day fine motor activity only requires a few pieces and will keep toddlers and preschoolers busy for quite awhile!
Supplies needed for this Valentine’s Day fine motor activity:
- Heart-shaped containers (we love these silicon heart baking cups!)
- Droppers
- Bin with water
- Liquid soap (optional)
Setting it up:
Pour a shallow amount of water into a bin. Set it on the table beside a tray. Or, if you happen to have an activity table like this one (we love ours), even better!
Simply place the heart-shaped containers on the tray along with the droppers.
Fill the Hearts
Tell your children that they will be filling the hearts with water using droppers.
If they have never used droppers before, take some time showing them how to squeeze and release the liquid.
This might take awhile, and you might have to help them a few times, but once they get it, they will catch on pretty quickly.
For younger toddlers who don’t have the strength to squeeze and release the droppers, let them use their hands to scoop the hearts into the water.
Once they’ve filled the hearts, they can dump the water back into the bin.
Creating Bubbles
If you have added liquid soap, your children will start noticing bubbles in the water.
Ours were delighted when they found bubbles inside their droppers, and then on their hands.
It added a whole other element to this Valentine’s Day fine motor activity!
Here are more ways to use the sensory bin during your Valentine’s Day theme:
Frozen Hearts Toddler Sensory Bin
Frozen Hearts Preschool Sensory Play
Dyed Rice Valentines Sensory Bin
Valentine’s Day Theme Preschool Lesson Plans
Learn about love and kindness with your preschoolers in this engaging Valentine’s Day theme lesson plan set with ideas for reading, math, science & more.
This lesson plan set also includes:
1) Chocolate Taste Test (in color and b/w)
2) Heart Counting Mats 1-20
3) “I Love” Emergent Reader (2 versions)
4) Valentine Upper and Lowercase ABC Match (in color and b/w)
5) Valentine’s Day Dice Game (in color and b/w)
6) Valentine’s Day Letter Puzzles (in color and b/w)
7) 0-35 Valentine’s Day Number Cards (in color and b/w)
8) Valentine Roll and Graph Math Game (in color and b/w)
9) Printable Valentine Writing Papers
CLICK HERE for more information!
