February is the month of Valentine's Day, a day to celebrate love and matters of the heart. Legend has it that St Valentine was a bishop in Rome who disobeyed the Emperor's law prohibiting marriage. Emperor Claudius II had this bright idea that men would make better soldiers if they weren't distracted by wife and family. Anyway, Valentine continued to perform marriages in secret but was eventually caught and thrown in prison. There, he cured the prison guard's blind daughter, Julia, and they subsequently fell in love. On the night before his execution on February 14th 270AD, he sent her a final letter signed "From Your Valentine".
Since the Middle Ages the feast day has been traditionally associated with romantic love, but nowadays, you can now find lots of activities online that celebrate familial and spiritual love too. In fact, I've collected some ideas together on a Valentine's Day Pinterest board for you to explore with your children ❤
This woven heart-shaped craft from First Palette is one of my favourites. I tried it with my Sunday school class and it proved a little tricky for younger children, so they simply wove the strips under and over each other to make a flat heart-shaped decoration instead. We glued the ends of the strips together to stop the heart from falling apart.
If you have older kids who have mastered the instructions, maybe you could set them the challenge of making baskets of different sizes so that they have to work out how to make the template for themselves ❤
February is also National Heart Month here in the UK. The perfect opportunity to learn about the science of the heart. You'll find lots of hands-on ideas, videos and printables on the Circulatory System section of my Human Body Pinterest board. There's something for all ages, so please pop over and have a look ❤
This February, we've got Pancake Day to look forward to as well. I can't wait :) Ooh, and don't forget that it's a leap year. I'll be taking the opportunity to tell my teenage children some leap year traditions. I think they may be a bit too big to play leap frog now - our own tradition when they were little 🐸
What's your favourite thing about February?
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