Estimating and Measuring with Candy Hearts

February 10, 2022 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

Candy hearts are a fun and familiar part of Valentine’s Day celebrations, but did you know that they can also be used as a teaching tool for math? This printable math activity from Buggy and Buddy is a great example of how conversation hearts can be used to teach math concepts in a fun and engaging way.

Grab the printable and details from Buggy and Buddy.

In this activity, kids are asked to estimate and measure the number of candy hearts for each flower. They can then use this information to practice math skills such as counting, measuring, and estimating. This activity is a good one for reinforcing these concepts, and it is also a great way to get kids excited about math.

If you are looking for other ways to use candy hearts to teach math, here are a few suggestions:

Sort the candy hearts by color and have kids practice counting and graphing the results.
Use the candy hearts to practice skip counting and other arithmetic skills.
Create a math scavenger hunt using the candy hearts as clues.
Use the candy hearts to practice measurement concepts such as size, weight, and volume.

Overall, candy hearts are a fun and versatile tool for teaching math to kids. Whether you use them in a structured activity or as a casual learning tool, they are sure to be a hit with kids of all ages. So, this printable math activity from Buggy and Buddy is a good one for estimating and measuring and it uses candy hearts.

The picture includes heart flowers of different heights. Kids can estimate how many hearts tall each one is, then use hearts to see how close their estimate was.

This is a great reminder to kids that you don’t have to always measure with a ruler. You can even extend the activity to measure items in the house or classroom, as long as you have enough candy.

[Photo: Buggy and Buddy.]

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Gross Motor Math Ideas

With little kids especially, linking learning to physical activity really does help them learn. Movement can help kids focus, and it just keeps them from sitting still all day, which isn’t good for anyone.

The good news is lots of different learning activities can be adopted to get kids moving while they learn, so let’s look at some math and number activities that use gross motor skills.

Probably the most obvious thing would be hopscotch, which helps kids count while they hop. You can also mix up the numbers, do skip counting with the numbers, give kids a simple math problem and have them hop to the correct answer, and on and on.

This number hop game from Gift of Curiosity is a more chaotic version, with number flash cards on the floor that kids can hop, skip or jump to as you call them out (this one is more for individual number identification than counting). It’s a great indoor option if it’s too hot, cold or rainy out to do traditional hopscotch, too.

This painter’s tape number line idea from Days with Grey doesn’t involve quite as much movement, but kids can move around while they place things on the number line and work on learning about one to one correspondence. In the blog post they use shoes, but you can count anything you’ve got handy. (Be warned when I visited this website had an ad that continually took up the whole page, but you can get the idea pretty quickly.)

One of the important tasks of learning numbers is learning a parent’s phone number just in case it’s ever needed, or how to dial 911 in case on an emergency. Teaching Mama has a great way to practice telephone numbers and get some movement in with a giant telephone keypad made out of paper plates. You can also use this for counting practice, but it’s a great idea for learning phone numbers, too.

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