February just breathes Valentine’s Day! By now, hearts, flowers, candies, and the colors red, pink, and white are everywhere. Everything all around reminds is that we have just a short while before February 14. As the math contributor, I’d like to share with you some ways you can bring Valentine’s Day to life in your homeschool using math. Even though I’m more of a “big-kid” teacher, I even have some math activities for the little ones today! No matter the grade, if your child is in elementary school I’ve got you covered this V-Day! I learned most of these ideas from fellow teachers so I went a-searchin’ for teacher OR kid bloggers that were sure to have posts you could glean from. Sure enough, I have 4 “stops” for you as celebrate Valentine’s Day with MATH!
Valentine Heart Color Sort (Ages 3-5)
My first stop landed me at Teaching Tiny Tots for your little learners this Valentine’s Day. Many preschoolers are learning color identification and differentiating. To add a Valentine’s Day feel to it, simply use jelly beans or heart candy to sort. Easy enough, your students sort the color by adding the color of the candy to the appropriate heart on the paper.
Valentine Number Heart Puzzles (Ages 4-6)
My second stop was none other than Kiwi Crate! This is an engaging activity for your little ones as they learn or practice counting, number ID, matching, and using those busy hands to make a whole heart. Even though my youngest can count and identify numbers, he needs to work on subsidizing. This heart activity works well for this skill just be sure to have your dots resemble those on dice.
Valentine Heart Estimation (Ages 7-9)
My third stop was at Posh Little Divas! This activity is going to work best if children can at least count to 100 by 1s. Have the child consider the size of heart and estimate how may candy hearts it will take to complete fill the heart without any hanging outside. They will record their estimation and begin to fill their heart. After, he or she can count the hearts and record the actual number.
Heart Fractions (Ages 9-11)
My fourth and final stop was from Teaching with a Mountain View! This activity actually surprised me! It helped seal in some fraction concepts that I did not realize were missing. Nonetheless, have your child grab a handful of heart candies out of the bag, count the total, and stack them by color. Of course their total number will be their denominator. They will have to count each candy per color and write the fraction for each until all colors have been counted. Once they are done with each color, they will add all the numerators together. They will see that the total fraction should yield the same number on top as it does the bottom–and that a fraction with the same numerator and denominator is in fact one whole. Discuss!
Personally, we’ve done the heart puzzles, and heart estimation, and heart fractions. My boys had a great time using those hands and interacting with math in more real way. Heart Fractions was my favorite, for sure. I hope you all find at least one Valentine’s Day activity today to incorporate in your homeschool. Have fun and Happy Valentine’s Day!
