Simple And Delicate Tissue Paper Hearts

This week, the hooligans have been crafting their little hearts out (no pun intended) in anticipation of Valentine’s Day. The older kids in my daycare made the tissue paper heart that I’m sharing with you today, but it’s a great craft for toddlers and preschoolers too.

Scrunching and crumpling the tissue paper is a great way for little ones to strengthen hand muscles and fine motor skills, and no matter their age, kids love working with tissue paper because of the way it sounds and feels when they handle it. 

I think it’s so important for our kids to do these old-fashioned, classic crafts. They don’t get nearly as many opportunities to create with tactile materials as we used to when we were kids. In fact, when we were making these tissue paper hearts, the hooligans said they never make crafts at school anymore. That saddens me because crafting was such a big part of my childhood.

Crafting lets kids connect with their own creativity and with each other in a way that they can't when there's a piece of technology in front of them. It's therapeutic and so rewarding. After all, there's nothing quite as gratifying as using your own hands to create something beautiful out of a few simple materials.

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With this craft, older kids can plan their design and get strategic with the placement of the colours they use. Younger children can just create freely, like my toddlers and preschoolers did when when they made these paper plate and tissue paper Valentine's wreaths a few years ago. Either way, the results will look lovely.

What You’ll Need:

• heart template cut out of regular paper
• white poster board
• tissue paper (we used white and various shades of pink and red)
• glue

How It's Made:

Draw a heart on a regular piece of paper and cut it out. Trace the heart on your poster board and cut that out.

Prepare your tissue paper by cutting it into three-inch squares. Have the kids twist these squares into fluffy tufts or crumple them tightly and glue them to their heart.

For the gluing, older kids can squeeze glue straight from the bottle, which is great for hand and wrist muscles. Very young children might find this too difficult though, in which case, you can provide them with a paintbrush and a small bowl of glue.

Have the kids cover their hearts in tissue paper until the poster board is no longer visible.

Happy Valentine's Day!