Valentine Heart Necklaces

A lot of you probably know that my mom was a teacher.   Many of the ideas that I use I have gotten from her.  The project that I am going to share with you is from her.  My birthday is in February and when I was little, one of my parties had a Valentine's Day theme.  I have a horrible memory, but this is one thing that I remember from that party.

Every year, I make my students heart necklaces.  I start with making a salt dough.  I got the recipe from Paula Deen. 

This is an awesome book.  The directions are so kid friendly.  Here is what the page for the salt dough recipe looks like:

Start by mixing together 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt, and 3/4 cup of water.  I also add red food coloring.  Your dough will look something like this:

Roll out your dough to no more than a 1/4 inch thick.  Use a heart cookie cutter to get your shape:

Once you have all of your hearts on a cookie sheet (or two) use an unsharpened pencil or a straw to make a hole at the top:

Bake at 250 degrees for about 2 hours. 

After they have cooled, paint each heart red.  This is where the food coloring in the dough will help you.  You don't have to use as many coats of paint.  I paint all of mine red and I just use stencil paint.

Once the hearts have dried, I use a white paint pen to write each student's name on a heart.  You can see the paint pen that I used in the picture:

Finally, use ribbon like what you would use on a balloon to turn the heart into a necklace:

My kiddos have always loved their necklaces...even the boys!

Switching gears and going totally off topic, on my Shelfari I am going to start sharing two books.  One will be a chapter book read aloud that I am using in my classroom.  The other will be the book that I am reading for ME.  If you have any good book suggestions for either the classroom or for me to read, I would be excited to learn about them!

Happy Sunday!