Hey there! Squeaks and I are busy making special gifts for our friends for Valentine’s Day. This holiday is all about showing love to our friends and family, often with gifts like cards and candy. But this year, we decided to make our own presents!
Squeaks is cutting out heart shapes for our cards. Did you know that the heart shape we see everywhere on Valentine’s Day isn’t what our real heart looks like? Let’s learn more about our amazing heart!
Try this: put two fingers on the side of your neck. Feel that bumping? That’s your pulse, which is your heart beating. Your heart is a muscle that works hard all day and night to pump blood around your body. It’s about the size of your fist and is super strong!
Your blood is like a delivery truck, carrying oxygen and nutrients to every part of your body. When you breathe in, your blood picks up oxygen from your lungs and delivers it everywhere, even to your toes! It also picks up waste like carbon dioxide to get rid of it when you breathe out.
Your heart pumps blood to every part of your body in less than a minute, beating over 100,000 times a day! When you exercise, your heart beats faster to deliver more oxygen and nutrients where they’re needed most.
We thought about making chocolate for our friends, but it’s quite a process! Chocolate comes from cacao beans, which grow on trees in warm, wet places. The beans are dried, roasted, and turned into chocolate at a factory.
Instead, we decided to make candy glass hearts. It’s a fun and simple way to make a sweet treat at home!
Flowers are another great gift. They attract pollinators like bees and butterflies, which help them make seeds for new plants. Each part of a flower, from the stem to the petals, has a special job.
The stem supports the plant and carries water and nutrients. Leaves make food using sunlight. The stamen produces pollen, and the pistil collects pollen to make seeds.
We also made homemade watercolor paints to decorate our cards. You can make your own with baking soda, vinegar, cornstarch, and food coloring. Mix them together, let them dry, and you’ll have your own paints!
We had so much fun making these special Valentine’s Day gifts. We hope our friends love them as much as we loved making them!
Happy Valentine’s Day from Squeaks and me! If you want to keep learning and crafting with us, be sure to join us again soon. See you next time!
Heart Beat Exploration: Let’s explore how our heart works! Find a quiet place and sit down. Place two fingers on your wrist or the side of your neck to feel your pulse. Count how many beats you feel in 15 seconds. Multiply that number by 4 to find out how many times your heart beats in one minute. Try this before and after running in place for one minute. What do you notice about your heart rate?
Flower Detective: Go on a nature walk with an adult and find different flowers. Look closely at each flower and try to identify the parts: stem, leaves, petals, stamen, and pistil. Draw a picture of your favorite flower and label its parts. How do you think each part helps the flower live and grow?
Homemade Candy Experiment: With an adult’s help, try making candy glass hearts at home. Use sugar, corn syrup, and water to create your candy. Once it’s ready, observe how the ingredients change when heated. What do you think happens to the sugar when it melts? How does it become hard again when it cools?
