Bilingual Positive Messages for Kids | Printable “Heart Attack” Valentines
Can you imagine waking up to a love note every morning? Try this thoughtful Valentine’s Day activity with your kids! Starting on February 1st, add a heart with a reason we love our kids on our child’s door. On each subsequent day, add another heart until the door is covered with hearts of affirmations on Valentine’s Day!
Since I want my kids to know that mom and dad love them unconditionally, I decided to use the valentines to focus on positive affirmations. I’ve created these bilingual printables to save time for your family and help parents who cannot write Chinese.
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Ever since Skip to My Lou first shared the brilliant “Heart Attack Valentines” idea in 2007, the sweet gesture has become extremely popular! It’s awesome to see many parents adapt the idea for their family and how excited their kids react. Whether or not you are crafty, you’ll be relieved to hear that this wonderful activity takes minimal effort and supplies!
Positive messages for our kids
A few months ago, I wrote about positive affirmations for our kids (Chinese and English) and was blown away by thoughtful replies from bilingual parents worldwide. In contrast to English, encouraging words in Chinese often feels awkward and unnatural.
However, many parents, including myself, want to use to support our children with positive language. Affirmations may require practice to become internalized and, in turn, impact our actions, behavior, and relationships.
The tradition of Heart Attack Valentines is a clever way to reinforce positive messages.
Other than Valentine’s Day, I think this activity would be great for birthdays or any time our kids need reminders of their wonderful attributes!
Download bilingual positive affirmation hearts
Each template includes 14 different positive affirmations plus 2 blank hearts! Choose your preferred language below:
Other recommended supplies
- 8.5″ x 11″ Colorful printer paper or construction paper
- Scissors
- Painter’s tape or wall putty
Related: Handmade Cards for Reading and Writing Practice (English, Chinese, and Korean)
Tips for making the most of bilingual Heart Attack Valentines
- If you’re busy, cut one heart at a time to spread out the work. Then surprise your kids with a new heart each morning before they wake up!
- Put the heart valentines at eye level. If you have toddlers, this means putting the hearts at the bottom of the doors. (Yes, just like the way toddlers hang ornaments on a Christmas tree haha).
- Invite your kids to decorate the hearts with drawings or stickers!
- The hearts are intentionally large so that the words are more visible. If you live in a non-diverse area like ours, noticeable Chinese words are an important part of creating a print-rich environment, especially for the minority language. Since Chinese characters are much more complex than English words, big font helps each stroke stand out more.
- If your kids can’t read Chinese or English yet, reading to them is a great way to model the power of decoding words. And if you can’t read Chinese fluently, I hope that the Zhuyin and Pinyin versions can help!
- If you have time or the ability to write, skip our printables and leave love notes the old-fashioned way! Modeling handwriting is one of the most powerful ways to motivate our kids learn writing!
Since Valentine’s Day is around the same time as Lunar New Year, we had our Chinese New Year banners up, too! Our doors have never been more festive! Whoohoo!
Get the printable affirmation hearts here
Did you set up positive message Heart Attack valentines with your kids?
If you try this activity, please let us know in the comments below! What age(s) are your kid(s) and how did it go? We’d love to hear about your learning experience!
More Valentine’s Day activities for kids
- Printable Valentine’s Day Cards in Chinese, Korean, and English
- Learn Names of Chinese Family Members with Printable Heart Matching Game
- 6 Activities to Teach Chinese Characters with 心 Heart Radical!
- Chinese Heart Radical Word Puzzles
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Hi Betty! Thank you so much for all the work you put into sharing printables, activities, and just general parenting reminders. I love how you’ve added Zhuyin with your traditional chinese printables! Thank you again!
Hi there, good work, I will suggest your blog to my friends.
Hi Betty,
Just want to say I love your blog and think you are doing such an amazing job raising your children multilingual and with a focus on Jesus. I am third generation Chinese American and non fluent and Am trying to foster a love of God and Chinese with my son and daughter. Keep up the amazing work mama.
Kathy
Hi Kathy! Thanks for taking the time to leave this thoughtful note! Will be praying for you on your journey with your children, too! <3
Love these! So important to have kids know that they are loved and they are enough!
Hello Betty!
Thank you so much for these pintables! Not sure if something didn’t load correctly on my end, but for the one that says “I am proud of you” in TC, with Zhuyin, the last two characters in Chinese are cut off when I load the file/link.
Thank you for all of your hard work!
Hi Alice! Thanks for letting me know – so sorry for the inconvenience. I just fixed the size of the font for that phrase in the Zhuyin version, and it should print properly now! I hope your kids love the messages! 🙂