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Easy Valentine’s Day Math Activities

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Adding a little Valentine’s Day to the mix makes math games even more fun. Check out these great, easy, printable and free options to use in the classroom, in your math center or at home.

These Valentine’s Day ladybug printables from Preschool Play and Learn help kiddos learn how to count to 20 and recognize the numbers that go with them. Kids can count the number and then clip or mark the numerals that represent that number on the side.

Use dice and the printables from 123 Homeschool 4 Me to recognize numbers from 1 to 12 in a different way. Here kids can roll the dice, count up the number and then cover up the corresponding number on the heart until they have gotten all the numbers.

The Printables Princess has lots of ideas for math and literacy centers for kindergarten that you can purchase, but if you scroll all the way to the bottom of the post there’s a freebie printable for a flip and find sheet that goes up to 100. You have the numbers on cards and the sheet with all the numbers, and kids (or you) can mix the number cards and then use them to find and cover up the numbers on the sheet. For this one you will need 100 of some small object like pompoms or little heart erasers, or if you only want to use it once you can use dot markers.

These Valentine hearts from A Little Pinch of Perfect ask students to pair half of the heart with the number to a half with the same number of hearts on it.

And Stay at Home Educator has printable ten frame cards showing the number, the word for the number and the same number of hearts. Kids can use buttons, pompoms or erasers to cover the hearts as they count, or just count the number and learn what the numeral looks like.

Have you read?

Book Review: The Festival of Lights

As if Diwali weren’t colorful and fun enough, The Festival of Lights: A Lift-the-flap Diwali Celebration by Namita Moolani Mehra, illustrated by Darshika Varm, makes it even more fun to read about with flaps and things to lift and pull to see more information or details in the illustrations. 

The book is a story about a family getting ready for Diwali and what happens on the different days of the five-day celebration. There’s cleaning, shopping, crafting, food preparation and getting the home altar ready for the big day. 

It covers decorating the outside of the house with rangoli, diyas and lanterns, buying sweets to share with family and friends, the sights and scents of the mandir (home temple), getting dressed up in new fancy clothes, the story of Diwali and celebrations with relatives.  

Flaps (there are more than 140 in all) give you vocabulary words for different foods and definitions, as well as fun things like what’s inside the shopping basket or where the cat is hanging out. They also help illuminate the story of Diwali, which is the triumph of good over evil as Lord Ram defeated the demon Ravana to save his wife, Sita. 

This pretty and colorful book helps kids understand what Diwali is and how it is celebrated, regardless of whether they practice it at home. This would be a nice book to keep in a classroom (it’s rated for kids ages 3-7) or to have at home to teach kids about Diwali even if it’s not something you celebrate. Where I live there are a lot of people from India so we are probably exposed to Diwali more than some other regions of America, but it’s a nice holiday to know about wherever you live. 

Combine with the book Diwali and check out some fun lantern crafts and printables for kids to round out your experience. 

About the book: 24 pages, hardcover, published 2025 by Wide Eyed Editions. Suggested retail prices $22.99.

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