9 Valentine’s Day Sensory and Fine Motor Activities for Toddlers

Today, I want to share 9 Valentine’s Day sensory activities that my toddler son and I did two years ago.

Most of these activities are sensory with the means of encouraging exploration. Furthermore, many of them also will work your child’s fine motor skills. 

We did play around with a few craft-like activities. However, I believe in children executing their creativity in an open-ended artistic setting, so many of these activities might not be as Pinterest-worthy as other Valentine’s Day activities for toddlers.

If you do not find an activity for your child in this post, you can check out some other Valentine’s Day posts below:

1. Learning about the colors of Valentine’s Day

We started working on colors a few weeks ago, so I thought it would be fun to talk about Valentine’s Day colors: pink and red. We went on a scavenger hunt throughout the house, and I asked Lennox to help me grab as many pink and red items as he could find.

He then has some free-range loose parts play with all of the random artifacts. Loose parts play is one of his favorites!

Related: 20 Color Learning Activities for Preschoolers

2. Color Sorting

With these pink and red artifacts, I had Lennox sort the items into different categories. This was tricky for Lennox since pink and red are very similar but he enjoyed playing with items he cannot normally play with.

One of the pink items we found were pink streamers from our gender reveal party. Lennox had so much fun throwing the streamers into the air, tearing them apart and taking them all throughout the house. I had a blast finding the streamers all over the house the following days.

3. Sticker Station

Lennox loves stickers. They are a great resource to practice fine motor skills. 

Even though his little fingers still struggle with the stickers, he is getting better at picking them up the more we practice.

For this activity, I set up a sticker station, and he practiced transferring the stickers to a piece of paper. 

He got a giggle out of sticking them all over himself and me!

4. Sticky Note Heart

When Lennox was napping, I made a sticky note heart on the wall. He had a blast using his fine motor skills to take the sticky notes down and go to town with throwing them all over the place.

5. Fill in the hearts

I drew some hearts on blank paper and showed Lennox how to fill them in. His little hands worked hard to try to get color inside the heart.

This is a super easy, and fun activity that will introduce your toddler to holding a writing utensil. We used Crayola markers, but you can also use crayons, or paint sticks as well!

Related: The Best Art and Craft Gift Ideas for Preschoolers and Toddlers

6. Purple & Pink Hand Stamps

I went into this activity with big ideas to create cute little Valentine’s hand and foot crafts. Well, it didn’t go as planned. Lennox started screaming bloody murder when I tried to paint his feet, so I stopped because I didn’t want to traumatize him.

He did have a blast playing in the Crayola washable paint and having some sensory exploration. It’s washable, so DON’T WORRY.

Before beginning this project, I would suggest putting an old blanket or vinyl table cloth down to protect your surfaces!

7. Toilet-Paper-Hearts

I realized that the crafts that I had in mind for Lennox were not working out to my imagination, so we invited his older toddler cousin, Miles, to help us out.

Lennox loved watching Miles execute the crafts, and he helped out a little bit as well. The first one they did together was toilet-paper-hearts.

We took the toilet paper roll and formed one part of it into the shape of a heart. Then dipped it into the paint and transferred the shape of the heart to paper. Miles continued to add items to his artwork, and it came out surprisingly good.

8. Heart Caterpillars

This activity was fun for both Lennox and Miles. Miles helped cut out hearts from light-pink and dark-pink card-stock paper. He then helped Lennox alternate the colors to form a caterpillar, one of Lennox’s favorite insect. With heart stickers, he made a face on the head of the heart caterpillar.

9. Heart Wreaths

This activity was all Miles. He took some cardboard and glued hearts around it, and decorated it. It was quite creative. Lennox loved playing with all the craft materials and pretending to help Miles.

Related: Mosaic Heart Chalk Activity for Preschoolers

We hope you enjoyed our Valentine’s Day Sensoryl Craft and Activities session. We are always doing fun activities. Follow us on social media to see more of what we do!

Other Valentine’s Day posts you might enjoy:

• 25 Valentine’s Day Sensory and Fine Motor Activities for Preschoolers
• DIY Heart Wreath Photo Collage
• 20 Free Valentine’s Day Printable Activities for Preschoolers