Two Children Exchanging Valentine's Day Cards Coloring Page

Two children have stopped in front of each other, and each one is holding a card out toward the other. The card on the right has a heart drawn on its front; the one on the left is still blank, waiting for you. Three hearts float in the air between their faces, stacked smallest to largest. Both children are smiling, both have a pair of short dashes on the cheek standing in for a blush, and both wear soft sweaters, one over cuffed trousers and one over a skirt. A few scratch marks under their shoes are the only ground.

This is about as friendly as a sheet gets for a four or five year old. Six or seven big areas, faces that need only two dots and a curve, and nothing overlapping.

Leave the blank card white until the end, then let your child draw something on it. That turns a coloring page into a card they actually made.

The classroom card exchange is older than you might guess. Esther Howland of Worcester, Massachusetts began mass producing American valentines in the 1840s, and by the 1850s children were handing them around at school.