Fine Motor Valentine Craft - Beaded Name Hearts

This valentine craft for kids was inspired by our candy cane names, as well as the preschoolers’ love for beads! The kiddos’ beaded name hearts integrated literacy, math, and fine motor skills.

They’ll be a great addition to your valentine activities for preschoolers this February!

$Beaded name heart valentine craft - great for fine motor skills, learning math patterns, and name work!$

beaded name heart valentine craft

Materials
Pipe cleaners in various colors
Alphabet beads – we used circular beads, as well as cube-like beads
Pony beads – we chose white, purple, blue, pink, and red

How the kids created
The kiddos were very interested once the beads and pipe cleaners were laid out on one of our center tables! There is just something cathartic and fun about stringing beads onto pipe cleaners. Plus, the children love wearing their creations and decorating with them.

I encouraged the kiddos to find the letters in their names and make patterns on their beaded hearts. Some did just that, carefully patterning and adding letter beads to create their names. Others used the beads to make their names on one side of the heart, while colorful beads went on the other side.

Not all of the students were interested in making name beads, and that’s ok! We were still able to talk about letters, colors, and patterns – all while having some fine motor fun.

beaded name heart valentine craft for kids

This kiddo made a beaded heart just focused on colorful patterns!

Once the children added their chosen beads to a pipe cleaner, I formed a ‘v’ with it. Then I curved in either side of the pipe cleaner and twisted the ends together. If needed, I evened it out to make the heart shape.

The learning
Here are some of the early learning concepts we touched on with this easy-peasy valentine craft:

Counting
Letter identification
Spelling names
Patterning
Fine motor practice

Do you have a favorite valentine craft you enjoy making with the kiddos? Are yours as into beading as my preschoolers are?

Preschool Lesson Plans for Valentine’s Day

Save time and get right to the playful learning with our printable lesson plan sets. Each set includes book suggestions, printable plans, over 30 learning activities (both whole group and centers) related to the theme, and corresponding printables.