Love Bugs

My four year old daughter is a major bug enthusiast. When she was just barely three her favorite thing to say was “Let’s talk about what bugs eat…” followed by listing various bugs and their eating habits, followed by their preferred dwelling place. She is particularly fond of spiders, don’t ask me why. Last Valentine’s Day she was determined that her Valentines should have either spiders or rocks on them. After doing some searching I found this adorable printable. I figured Love Bugs had a slightly less Halloween vibe than most arachnids. After searching in vain for cheap plastic insects, we decided to make our own and I really loved the way they turned out.

We used a Reese’s heart and googly eyes to create the main part of the bug and then I had Alice draw on the legs. She loved doing it for about five Valentines and then it took some coaching to make it through. She was very pleased with the results, though. In fact, she wants to make them again this year. She’s at a different school now, so we might as well, right? Also, now she can write her own name on them which will make them even cuter.

While we are on the subject of love bugs, let’s talk about these great books I found my girls for Valentine’s Day this year. (You had to know there’d be books…)

The bigger book, “Love Bugs” is the story of a delightful misunderstanding between insect secret admirers. The illustrations are really cute and the whole thing is a lot of fun. I’m confident I picked a winner, but I can’t be sure till it passes inspection by my girls.

That tiny one, just “Love Bugs” is also adorable. It’s a pop-up book, which makes it extra enjoyable. It’s a cute poem that ends asking the reader, “Will you be my Love Bug?” It’s basically a Valentine in book form. Amazon doesn’t show any of the pages, so I took a couple pictures to demonstrate the pop-up awesomeness.

I hope something here sparks some Valentine ideas for the love bugs in your life!