Fun Preschool Valentine’s Activity Using Marbles and Doily Hearts

Last Updated on January 27, 2022 by Sheryl Cooper

Inside: Add some action to your preschool Valentine’s activity by moving marbles across doily hearts, making paint tracks. Fun action art that even the busiest kids love!

Another holiday is coming up! And there are so many cookie cutter crafts available. But whenever I can squeeze in some child-directed process art, I do. This marble Valentine heart activity for preschoolers is all process art, and yet because it’s in the shape of a heart, it fits right in with Valentine’s Day.

I am often asked what’s the difference between teacher-directed and child-directed. It comes down to this: if you can hand them the materials and let them do their own thing, it’s child-directed. If you are sitting right there, guiding them every step of the way, it’s teacher-directed.

This is definitely child-directed!

Make sure to check out these other Valentine’s Day process art activities:

• Hearts Painted by Cars
• Valentine’s Bags
• Heart Prints

Fun Preschool Valentine’s Activity Using Marbles and Doily Hearts

What you will need:

Paper doily hearts

Marbles

Red tempera paint

Something to transfer the marbles to the heart, such as bug tongs

A box lid

Setting it up:

Pour some paint into a bowl. Add the marbles and bug tongs. (Or whatever you choose to use for transferring the marbles.)

Place a paper doily heart inside the box lid.

Invite your preschooler to transfer the marbles from the bowl to the box lid.

Hold on to the sides of the box lid and tip it back and forth to move the marbles. This takes some upper body coordination as the preschoolers figure out how much tipping is needed to move the marbles around.

If you want a bigger challenge, use a larger box lid. More thought will be needed to figure out how to get the marbles to get to the paper heart, not just the box lid.

Busy children especially love this activity because of the motion involved. They don’t even need to sit. Move the chairs away from the table and let them stand. They actually might use more of their body this way, too.

This is also a good activity for those with low motor tone. It uses the fingers, hands, arms and shoulders.

I love this photo because it shows how much we reuse our box lids! You can see several different colors of paint plus glitter from previous paint rolling activities.

How to adapt this for younger children: 

We’ve used sensory balls and golf balls. I suggest starting with the sensory balls since they are larger and lighter, and then move to the golf balls.

CLICK HERE to find more toddler Valentine’s Day art activities!

 

And make sure to pop over to our Valentine’s Day pin board!

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