Valentine Story Props

I made some quick story props for two of our Valentine's Day books this week.  They're both counting books.  The first is One Heart: A Valentine Counting Book.  A little girl puts one heart in her pocket, gives two hearts to her parents, three hearts to her kittens, etc.  All the way up to ten when she goes back to one and gives the special heart she put in her pocket to her teacher.  It's a simple rhyming book that's perfect for preschoolers.

The second counting book is also a fun rhyming one.  It's called 10 Valentine Friends.  Ten little friends work on making special Valentines.  Their Valentines are personalized with dinosaurs, gorillas, princesses, etc.  I like this book because there is a column on each page where you can watch the Valentines stack up as each one is added.  Excellent counting practice and fun too!

The props are pretty self-explanatory, but I did take some pictures.  I started with craft foam cut into 10 heart shapes (I added some faces too) and 5 pipe cleaners cut in half.

I glued the hearts to the pipe cleaners with a hot glue gun.

And twisted them around a marker.

Stick them on your fingers and you've got some perfect story props for Valentine's Day counting books! My cute little assistant held up the right number of hearts for each page in the Valentine's books.