This month, we really wanted to take advantage of the “love” theme to check the tone in our house. Our post Christmas and Birthday crabbiness has blended with a touch of winter blues to make things a bit negative around here. Below are the two ways we are literally filling our home, our language, and our minds with love. We are only a few days in, but already the tone of our home and the sibling relationships in it are much more loving!
Tree of Love:
You’ll need: A tree, small heart shaped notes,
I got our little tree in the dollar bin at Target. You could use any kind of tree and tie things on with ribbon, or use a basket or sack that is Valentine themed, anything to hold your little notes would work.
I cut our little hearts out of paper from our scrap bag, if you don’t want to cut, lots of craft stores have heart cut-outs in a variety of sizes and colors available right now.
The idea is simple, throughout the day, we are on the look out for love. I introduced this using binoculars and pointing out things I had seen the girls do earlier in the day, “I saw you ask your sister to help you with nice words instead of whining,” “I saw you practice piano with no complaining.” Then I told them that whenever they saw love happening they could come and write it on a heart and attach the heart to the tree. For the first day, I made it a point to point out the loving or even the pleasant things that were happening, but since then they have been great about doing it all on their own, even my beginning writer has been “sounding out” her own cards to write!
Each night at dinner we take turns taking a heart off the tree and reading about the love that is filling our home. The person whom the heart was written about is affirmed and the rest of us are encouraged by their example. Easy and highly effective.
Hidden Hearts:
You’ll need: One cut out heart per child, per day (again, I cut mine from scrap paper)
This is really simple, but our girls have loved it and it has really helped them remember that they are all important and loved and that each one deserves to be treated like that.
Simply write a little note to your child telling them one thing you love or appreciate about them, sign it and hide it somewhere in the house. The kids then wake up and hunt for it (if you don’t have time in the morning you could do it after school or before bed, whatever works for your family.) Our girls have decided to hang all the hearts they find on the kitchen wall so they can make a wall of love! Again, really a good visual that reminds them that each person is treasured and deserves to be treated with love.
Here is a link to last week’s Valentine Craft post, I added some pictures so you can see our finished product and here is a link to some snow fun ideas, just in case you need them this week!
Have a safe and warm week in our snowy town. Stop by next week for some family friendly ways to celebrate President’s Day.
men’s Expo
