This cute idea is such a great Valentines day activity for toddlers so if you’re looking for some easy heart painting ideas then read on, you’re going to love how easy this is to set up!
My kids don’t really send valentines but that doesn’t mean that they don’t both love to throw themselves fully into Valentine’s Day crafts and activities, besides what could be better than celebrating the concept of love?!
I thought it would be good to share some Valentines activities for toddlers and this craft is a nice way to get children to experiment with painting without a paintbrush (or their hands!) and is also a great way to keep your little ones busy using items from your kitchen cupboard.
Whether you’re at a playgroup or at home with your child hopefully the ideas in this will help to give you some more inspiration for activities for toddlers that are easy to do.
What You'll Find on This Page
Foil Love Heart Painting
This activity is so simple to do, which means that it’s perfect for toddlers and preschoolers.
Like many parents, I’ve spent a lot of time searching for toddler activities on Pinterest before only to realise that they were well beyond what a two or three year old was actually capable of doing.
As you can see from the photos though this is a a Valentines painting that was made by my daughter so you can be fairly certain that within reason it’s something your toddler could do too – anything a bit more abstract or process art based is a lot better for art projects with younger kids!
While we’ve created this primarily as a Valentines activity you could also use it for Mothers Day later in the year when heart arts are obviously really popular as well. You could even stick one of your painted hearts onto the front of a blank card for a super easy Mothers Day card, just grab a marker and get them to scribble a note inside!
Just so you are aware, this is a post from a couple of years ago which I’ve republished as it was so popular (we all need simple ideas, right?). I no longer allow my kids to use glitter because it would stick to their hands and when washed off it’s not filtered out so it goes into the ocean (and the studies I’ve seen show biodegradable glitter doesn’t biodegrade in the ocean).
It’s not my most popular parenting choice with my daughter but she does understand! If you have similar concerns then you could use coloured rice or cut heart shapes out of scrap paper using a paper punch.
Like this post? Make sure that you bookmark this page or pin an image so that you don’t forget about it plus keep reading for more heart activities for toddlers.
Valentines Day Painting Materials
- Kitchen Foil / Aluminium Foil
- Paints – we used red, pink and a glittery purple one
- Cardstock
- Scissors
- Plate or tray to pour your paint onto
Free Heart Template
While I’ve drawn our hearts freehand, if you’d prefer not to do so why not grab our free heart template.
You can print as many copies as you’d like so it’s prefect if you are doing this activity in a preschool or classroom or if you are at home and want to try out some more heart painting ideas.
How To Make Your Love Heart Painting
To start I cut out some heart shapes from old pizza boxes, there are two reasons behind this, firstly it means that in some way I can justify the pizza that I ate the day before but on a more sensible level toddlers can go for things full throttle and card can cope with a lot more paint on it than normal paper can.
Obviously not everyone is going to have pizza boxes hanging around so I would generally advise using cardstock for this activity, this allows for larger amount of paint to be used without it getting too saturated.
If you do want to have a look through your recycling bin for something that you could use as the base for this activity then cereal boxes or similar would also be a good choice.
I set up a bit of an invitation to create for her which I shared on Instagram with the hearts, paint, foil and glitter all set out and sat beside her while we got busy painting.
She really enjoyed scrunching up the foil and dipping it into the paint and once I showed her how to paint the hearts with it she really enjoyed that too, asking for more of each colour of paint.
I think for kids making their own materials like this is a nice experience and it’s always good to have a change from just using a paint brush. Of course as a mom I also always appreciate not having to go out and buy loads of new craft supplies for painting with too.
Acrylic paint is definitely what I would recommend for this activity (or normal kids paints) as they give more texture. While we love the look of watercolor paints they don’t generally work well with homemade stamps like this foil one.
You can also use this as an excuse to learn a little about color mixing, trying red paint and white paint together to see what shades of pink paint you can create.
As an aside, my toddler is rather obsessed with glitter and as previous to this activity she’d been a bit miserable I thought I’d get the glitter out for her to use.
And she loved pouring it on her painted hearts to make them super shiny, however it’s now 48 hours since we did this and I am still cleaning up glitter from ohhhhh every room in our house?! So the glitter is very much optional!
Valentine Activities for Toddlers:
Looking for more Valentines and heart painting ideas for toddlers? We’ve shared loads of ideas so there’s bound to be something new to try that your child will love!
We’ve shared lots of easy art ideas that you can use to make some Valentines Tree crafts using our free tree template.
I made this easy mosaic heart craft with my daughter which she loved doing!
Need more inspiration? Carry on your theme of all things lovely and heart shaped with this round up of Valentines Day crafts for toddlers
These are beautiful and so much fun.
Ha ha – we’d have glitter everywhere, too! These are cute though. Something my own (post-toddler) kids would enjoy, I’m sure.
Aww cute! It’s so lovely to do crafting with the kids, I really should do more x
These are lovely, but seem like an easy task to do; as long as I can get over my fear of letting my kids loose on the glitter again! Thanks so much for taking part in the Love Blog Hop.
Thank you for sharing this great activity!