ASL I-Love-You Craft – Try this Fun ASL Craft for Valentine’s Day

Looking for a great ASL craft for kids? This cute ASL “I Love You” card is perfect for Valentine’s Day or any other time of the year!

Valentine’s Day is such a great time to tell everyone you love how you feel about them. You don’t have to just say “I love you” with words though. This cute Valentine’s Day card uses a cut out of your hand to form the ASL sign for “I Love You” and is perfect as a Valentine’s Day craft of a DIY Valentine’s Day card.

This craft is one I’ve been making with my kids for years. When I as a new mom, I quite my teaching job to start a home daycare so I could spend more time with my kids. I loved it and I got a little obsessed with my “themed weeks” that involved multiple crafts a day, which the kids loved but my house was a bit overrun with art supplies there for a bit.

The sad part is my kids were too young to remember that. When I realized I’d done most of my favorite kids arts and crafts projects with other people’s kids instead of my own I realized we needed to start carving more time out for crafts.

So we sat down the other day to make Valentine’s Day cards for the people we love. My preschooler thought it was really cool that people can talk using their hands. We did a little bit of sign language with her when she was tiny but she doesn’t remember it at all so she really enjoyed learning a few simple signs while we made this project.

 

ASL Craft Supplies

• Red construction paper
• Skin colored construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Glitter, buttons or other decorations. We used heart cutouts similar to these. 

What To Do

Fold one piece of construction paper in half to form the base of your card.

Trace your child’s hand on a piece of skin colored construction paper. You can make these with an adult hand too but you’ll have to use a card that’s a little bigger for it to fit.

Cut out the hand shape then fold the two middle fingers down to form the ASL sign for “I love you”.

Decorate the front of your card any way you’d like. Get creative. Use all the glitter.

Glue your hand cut out to the front of your card.

Add any words you’d like to include to the front and inside of your card then give it to someone you love.

Teaching Kids About ASL

Take the opportunity to talk about American Sign Language and why people use it with your kids while you work on this project. I used to work as a special education teacher and I had several students who used sign language as their main form of communication. It was always such a special experience when mainstream students could communicate with my students because they’d learned a few signs. I’ve remembered that experience and tried to teach my kids a few signs here and there so that they can communicate with people of all abilities.

We have a few favorite books we’ve used to teach basic ASL over the years. Here are a few of our favorites:

 The Handmade Alphabet – This is my absolute favorite books for kids about sign language. The illustrations in this book are fabulous and it gives kids such a good look at the ASL alphabet.

We also love:

Handsigns – A sign language alphabet
My First Book of Sign Language
Sign Language for Kids
Sign and Sing Along: Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star
Hands and Hearts

 

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