Valentine’s Day is a fun time to celebrate all kinds of love, friendship, and relationships. I love sharing the holiday with my daughter and taking the opportunity to read more books on love and friendship. Today we had the opportunity to check out a fun new Valentine’s Day book for kids about a group of animal friends and the fun that they have during the holiday!

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Duck and Hippo The Secret Valentine was written by Jonathan London and illustrated by Andrew Joyner. It’s Valentine’s Day and the animals are celebrating, but Duck is worried that he doesn’t have a Valentine. He comes up with an idea, and soon all of his animal friends are receiving invitations from a secret Valentine. They all prepare surprises to share and meet in the park, to find that Duck has decided to surprise them all.

This sweet story focuses on friendship and celebrating the love that friends have for one another on this day of love. The illustrations are bright and colorful, featuring adorable animal characters.

Heart Shaped Ducks

To bring Duck to life, we decided to make these adorable ducks out of hearts! First trace two hearts onto construction paper and have kids cut them out. Glue the top halves of the hearts together, back to back. Next, trace a smaller heart onto a piece of white construction paper and have kids cut that out. Fold the white heart in half and glue the pointed end onto the middle of one of your larger hearts, so the bumps are sticking straight up. Draw two eyeballs onto the white bumps to create eyes.

Heart Shaped Pizza

In the story, Pig decides to share her favorite festive pizza with her secret Valentine. So we decided to create our own special Valentine’s Day pizza. Start with your favorite pizza dough (whether homemade or store bought) and roll it into a heart shape. Cover it in your favorite toppings and decorate with heart shaped pepperonis or veggies. You could also make smaller heart shapes and let everyone decorate with their own toppings.

Heart Shaped Grapes

To pair with our festive pizzas, I decided to make some heart shaped grapes. Slice grapes on an angle, then flip one of the sides over so both pointed ends are facing down. You can pierce them with a toothpick to make them stay in a heart shape. These make a great side for your Valentine’s Day pizza, or as a surprise snack or lunch box treat!

Related Post: Fantastic Children’s Books about Love

Conversation Heart Word Work

We are currently working on letters and names, so I decided to make our practice a little more festive with the addition of Conversation Hearts. I laid out a bunch of hearts on the table and wrote out letters and names on sheets of paper. Then she used the hearts to outline the letters on the page. When she completely covered a letter or name, I asked her to make the letter sound or identify the letters in the word, and then she got to eat the candies!

Conversation Heart Patterns

The different colors of conversation hearts provide the perfect opportunity to practice making patterns. First, I placed the hearts on the table and started some patterns on a sheet of paper. I encouraged her to study the pattern and decide which colored heart should come next. Once she had done a few of my patterns, I let her create some of her own. We had a lot of fun creating different patterns and testing one another to see if we could solve them.

Related Post: Celebrating Valentine’s Day with Your Favorite Characters

Conversation Heart Stories

Use your Conversation hearts to come up with a funny story or letter. Use the printables that I have created, or make up your own! For the first printable, you can simply add hearts into the boxes and read the letter as you go. For the second one, you can fill in the sentences around the hearts to create your own!

Spreading the Love

In the story, Duck decides to surprise his friends for Valentine’s Day. This is a great opportunity to surprise some of your neighbors and spread the love! We recently decided to make a few care packages and deliver them to our neighbors around Christmas. My daughter loved creating little care packages of cookies and treats to share. Check out my post about our giving adventure here!

Valentine’s Day is a celebration of all kids of loving relationships. This adorable story reminds us of the importance of friendship, and sharing our love with those around us.

What are your favorite Valentine’s Day books to share with your kids? Share in the comments below!

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