Love Monster – Mrs Mama Bird

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching!! If you are in need of some Valentine’s Day activities for your plans, you have come to the right place. In this post, I will share some monster puzzles, ABC monster games, as well as a fun Valentine’s Day monster FREEBIE to help your preschoolers order the letters in their name, identify letters, and identify letter sounds.

Preschoolers absolutely love learning the letters and spelling of their own names. Here’s a look at the Valentine’s monster name puzzles. These puzzles are editable so that you can add the names of your own students with templates that support names with 2 – 15 letters. You can also use these puzzles to practice counting, ordering letters, spelling vocabulary words and sight words, if you so choose.

There are several ways to use these name puzzles. I prefer to print them in color, laminate them, and add a magnet to the back of each piece. This makes the pieces easier to manipulate on a magnetic surface. A cookie tin from the Dollar Store is an easy way to display the pieces with plenty of room to arrange the puzzle. If you choose not to laminate the pieces for reuse, your students can glue the pieces in order on a sheet of construction paper.

Black and white versions of each template are available with this resource if you prefer not to or don’t have access to colored ink. You preschoolers can color their own name puzzles, cut out the pieces, order them and glue. This approach would incorporate some very important fine motor skills as well.

You can have your preschoolers go on their own “Love Hunt” with the Love Monster Alphabet search and find activity. With this activity, you can display the alphabet cards and tuck the 10 monster cards underneath 10 different alphabet cards at random without letting the students see. Your little learners can take turns naming each letter then peek underneath to see if they find a monster. This can be cooperative or competitive, it’s up to you!

If you would like your preschoolers to keep track of where the monsters are found, there are two alphabet mat variations to use. Students can cover up the colored hearts with counters or monster erasers with the colored version. If you prefer black and white, have your students color or dot the letters where the monsters are found.

You can also use the Love Monster Alphabet Mats with search and find sensory bins or alphabet hunts around the room. I set up a sensory bin with our 1 inch tiles for Lillian to find and match the letters. You could also use the letter cards and “hide” them around the room. Have students walk around and color in each alphabet heart as they find the corresponding letter. These Love Monster Alphabet Mats are available for FREE in my shop. The link to this freebie is at the bottom of this post.

Update: I found these amazing little heart shaped containers at Walmart and had to grab them for this activity!! They are just the right size to fit the 1 inch letter tiles that I like to use with this Search and Find Activity. They would also fit alphabet erasers or letter beads if you prefer to use those. I simply put one letter tile in each heart and hid the hearts in a sensory tray full of black beans. They added task of opening the little containers is not only super fun and engaging, it is any way to build those fine motor skills which is exactly what preschoolers need before they learn to write.

The last Love Monster activity I designed for Valentine’s Day is a set of Love Monster Alphabet Puzzles. This activity includes a set of 26, four piece puzzles. Each puzzle represents a different letter of the alphabet with a piece for the uppercase letter a piece for the lowercase letter and two pieces for a picture that begins with that letter. My favorite way to put these puzzles together is cooperatively in a small group. Because all 26 puzzles at once can be cumbersome, I prefer to choose 10 – 12 letters to focus on for the game and only use those pieces. Once I’ve selected the pieces I want to use, I mix them up and create a draw pile. Each player takes a turn drawing a card and placing it on the table. If the card goes with another card that has been played, it gets placed with that puzzle. If it begins a new puzzle, it gets placed in an empty space on the table. Your students can work together adding pieces until all the puzzles are complete. The Love Monster picture on each puzzle provides an opportunity for your students to self correct as they go.

That’s it! I had a lot of fun creating and preparing these fun Valentine’s Day activities for preschool and kindergarten. I hope that you are inspired by them as you plan a fun Valentine’s week for your little learners!

If you would like all the fun Valentine’s Day Monster activities, including the FREE alphabet mat, you can find them in my shop by clicking the icons below.