Having Fun (And Learning) With Candy Hearts

I love incorporating holidays, themes, and seasons into our learning. It just seems to make it more fun for all of us. One of our favorite learning manipulatives for Valentine's Day is a bag of candy hearts. They can be used in so many ways and are an inexpensive way to bring some fun into your activities. 

We use candy hearts for so many different lessons that we have a little candy heart center set up. This way the lessons as well as the materials are easily accessible, which is helpful since we homeschool. My oldest can work on these activities whenever she feels like it without waiting for me to pull everything out. This would also be a great way to have your centers set up in a classroom, as it will allow several different activities to be switched out quickly and easily based on student needs.

One easy activity we do is building shapes with the candy hearts. I helped my learner out a bit by drawing the shapes on our chalkboard table and she traced them with the hearts. You could also simply draw the shapes, or let them try to create them on their own. This is great for fine motor skills, so Littlest One just practiced making a straight line. (He LOVES to do activities with his sister!)

 We also used these hearts for a great no-prep measuring center. We simply grabbed some materials from around our learning area, and I asked her how many hearts long she thought they would be. Then we measured the items and compared them to her guess, sneaking in a little estimation lesson.

My oldest did a fun science fair project this year on dissolving candy canes in different liquids. We simplified this a bit and used candy hearts instead of candy canes to make a fun Valentine's experiment. We kept it easy and used vinegar, hot water, and cold water.

We have hearts with letters and numbers on them, which I wrote about in this blog post. We use these hearts along with our candy hearts to practice some of our skills. One thing Bug is focusing on now is letter recognition and formation, so she "traces" her letters with the candy hearts.

She has already mastered counting to ten, but we are practicing her teen numbers by using candy hearts with the printable hearts used as counting mats.



The other day she surprised me by modeling addition problems with her princess toys. (Thank you Mickey Mouse Clubhouse!) Because she showed interest in this, we have begun modeling very simple addition problems using the number cards and candy hearts. 

We started by making a number sentence with the hearts and counting the correct number of candy hearts on each addend. Then we moved the hearts to the other side of the number sentence and she counted them together and found the correct sum.

If you're looking for some easy printable candy heart activities, I have this great Candy Heart Activities Pack in my TpT store. It includes 9 different printable activities to do with your kids. They can also easily be used as a center or glued into a manila folder to create folder games. The pack includes both colored and black and white versions of most activities.

This color sort is great for the littlest learners, or even those older ones that need a little review. It makes a basic activity a little more fun and festive.

If your kids are learning to count, these ten frame pages are a great way to add some hands-on practice.

Another way to practice both counting and sorting is to use this graphing mat. It also has an accompanying page of questions that can be answered based on the completed graph.

These pattern cards are a fun way to introduce patterns. There are 20 different cards, as well as some blank cards for students to create their own patterns. This is a fantastic way to assess whether your students have mastered the idea of patterns.

I think this is my favorite activity in the pack. It is a creative writing activity that allows students to imagine what kind of candy heart they would be. It also includes some questions you can ask your kiddos before they begin to design their heart, as well as two different types of versions for them to write on. This would look so cute as a class display!

This is a fun but simple STEM activity. There are ideas included in order to extend the activity and further understanding of using different methods in order to complete the stacking challenge.

These are great ways to incorporate a little sweetness into your learning using just a bag of candy hearts. Do you use candy hearts in any learning activities? Let me know what your favorite lesson is in the comments!

13 Learning Activities With Valentine's Hearts

I love Valentine's Day. Pink is such a cheerful color, and it seems like people are just nicer around the middle of February. Being surrounded by chocolate doesn't hurt either. Bringing a bit of this "love"ly holiday into our learning always seems to excite the kids. (Sorry, I couldn't help it!)

I love activities that we can use in many ways. Since our space is limited, (and I may not be the most organized person), it makes life so much easier. I also don't have tons of prep time, so having one versatile set that I can use to teach many skills is always amazing. These are some of the ways I use this Valentine's Alphabet & Number Set in my TeacherspayTeacher store. They do take a little time to cut out, but considering how many activities they can be used for it is totally worth it. It includes a colored version with two different pinks, a red, and a purple, as well as a black and white version, which I love because I can print them in any color I want!

I try to always have a themed alphabet hanging in our learning space. It not only makes the room cuter, but also has some use to it. It's great to be able to refer to the letters whenever we need to.

My daughter knows most of her uppercase letters, so we clipped the lowercase letters onto the larger hearts. I love how this contains two sizes, so we can easily have a visual for the idea of "big" letters and "small" letters.

I also like to display a number line in our room. I keep it on our dry-erase easel so she can refer to it while she works.

There are so many math activities you can use with these hearts. The larger size works great as a counting mat for young learners.

This is one of our favorite activities. I lay the large numbered hearts out, and she orders them and count the correct number of hearts. (She can use the number line for reference if she gets stuck!) We did this with snowman cutouts and pompoms this winter, and she still loves it!

If your learners are starting to add (or subtract, multiply, divide, etc.), these hearts are perfect for modeling math problems! We use the large numbers as number mats in our problem, but you could also use the small ones. Because we are just starting out with number sentences, I used the smaller math symbols so she could easily find the numbers and tell them apart from the symbols. 

You can also model a problem and have them find the correct numbers to complete the sentence.

The big hearts also make great phonics mats. You can have your kids go on a scavenger hunt for the beginning sound. We found hearts for our letter H, because we currently have lots of those laying around! But you can find a few and have them try to see how many other objects they can find to add to the mat. You can even leave them as a display in the classroom.

You can also have them match upper and lower case numbers. We like to pick a few letters at a time and make a memory match game. You could make it a bit easier by printing the uppercase letters in one color and the lowercase in another. Great for an easy differentiation!

The small hearts also make a great tool for practicing spelling words. We are starting our sight words, so that's what we have been practicing, along with our names.

You can also use small objects to practice letter formation by tracing the letters or numbers.

There are a few blank hearts included. We took one of the large blank hearts and wrote "pink heart" on it and added it to our sensory bin, since that is the shape and color we are focusing on. 

You can also add letters or numbers to your sensory bin. You can have the kids choose a number card, and count that number of objects from the sensory bin.

 These are just a few of my favorite ways to use these hearts with my littlest learners. Can you think of any other activities these would be good for? Leave your ideas in the comments below!?