Heart Pattern Blocks + Valentine Math Activities
When it comes to the holidays, any holiday, I love to stock my centers with fun thematic activities! This year, I’m adding these FREE heart pattern blocks + Valentine math activities to our math center, making it a sweet addition to our other Valentine’s Day math activities!
Plus, this activity is all about matching, color recognition, and learning shapes! It’s always so exciting to see preschoolers make sense of shapes and learn spatial awareness and spatial reasoning through fun hands-on play.
Valentine Math
When we celebrate Valentine’s Day in preschool, we celebrate for much more than a single day. That’s because we always do a friendship preschool theme in February, which I find so fitting for Valentine’s Day!
It’s pretty simple to take the traditional story of St. Valentine and use that as a jumping point to teach children about loving others for their friendship and kindness.
While hearts are a kitschy way to represent Valentine’s Day, they are fitting for what they represent. In preschool, that is the celebration of caring and kind friendships. The icon works here. And it especially works in this Valentine’s Day math activities.
We love using our Valentine’s Day Activity Pack and the Friendship Circle Time pack for developing strong social emotional skills as we celebrate love for one another!
Why Heart Pattern Block Activities?
Have you ever wondered why these little geometric shapes are called pattern blocks? Typically when they are used, children are simply matching up the colors and shapes to complete designs with a range of complexity.
Where is the ABAB in that? Well, making matches is one of the beginning steps in learning how to make patterns.
As children work with pattern blocks, they learn to differentiate colors, shapes, and sizes as they are making those matches. All skills which are important in copying, extending, and building real patterns.
Valentine Pattern Block Templates
These Valentine pattern block templates are a great way to introduce early math skills in a fun and approachable way. It requires children use problem-solving skills to match and correctly orient the shape to fit in the lines. Plus students will love the bright colors and hands-on fun they are having!
What You Get
This FREE copy of Valentine Pattern Block templates includes seven pages of hearts with varying pattern block designs. It’s a great way to see how shapes are made of other shapes!
Additional Materials
- laminator
- heavy card stock
- pattern blocks
- free printable at the end of this post
The Set Up
Just print the free math printable in color, then laminate! Place on a tray with a bowl of pattern blocks. Then, invite your preschooler to join you in using the pattern blocks to make some friendship hearts. It’s preschool Valentine’s day math at its finest!
But don’t forget, these pattern block hearts can also be used in a kindergarten classroom, too. In fact, when I made these, I printed and laminated them for my daughter’s kinder teacher for Christmas.
Valentine’s Day Engaging Crafts
We LOVE giving away Valentine’s day presents for the moms and dads so we use hands-on crafts to create something memorable. Take a look at some craft ideas for this Valentine’s Day!
This post may contain affiliate links, which means that at no cost to you, I may earn a small sum if you click through and make a purchase.
- Fun Rainbow Magic Scratch Paper – The surface of the paper is a black matte coating, which can be…
- Diy Art Ornaments For Valentine’s Day – The scratch paper is designed in a heart-shape, which is a…
- Complete Craft Set – The Rainbow scratch art set has 28 heart Scratch paper including 7 shapes, 28…
- 【Packing Includes 48 Pcs】For each Valentines Day picture frame craft kit, you will receive 48…
- 【Good Material】Our Valentines day crafts kit are made of exquisite card and sticker, making them…
- 【Multi-Purpose Picture Frame Design】The Valentine’s Day photo frame craft kits is a standing…
- [SUNCATCHER CRAFT – HEART] Includes 3 Sets of 3 Precut Heart Templates and 3 Sets of 9 Assorted…
- [COLOR AND SIZE] Black color paper template with approximate size 5.7” X 6.3”.
- [FEATURES] This easy and simple create your own kit contains everything needed to design and make…
- 【You Will Receive】Valentine’s Day heart craft kits include 36 pieces of heart-shaped tree card…
- 【Romantic 3D Design】The Valentine’s Day DIY heart tree craft kits are designed with 3D design,…
- 【Easy to Use】Valentine’s Day heart craft kits is easy for kids to DIY. Kids could choose their…
- Package includes: these Valentine’s monster craft kits for kids come with 24 monster body cards (6…
- Size and material: the valentine craft kits are color printing, the monster body cards and monster…
- Enjoy the fun of DIY: Valentine’s Day DIY card game can stimulate children’s imagination, creativity…
Free Printable Pattern Block Hearts
One of the best part about this pattern block activity is how children naturally “play” with the manipulatives to build, create, design, and manipulate their shapes. Even if they are not solely using the mats to match and replicate, they are learning a lot about how shapes are constructed and oriented.
We have even more awesome ideas below if you are looking to challenge or adapt for your students. This pattern block heart printable is really versatile and fun!
5 Ways to Teach Shapes With Pattern Blocks
Students learn best when they have the right kind of math practice, even when activities include heart shaped pattern block printables like this one. Let me show you some fun math activities using this printable. It’s guaranteed to make a fun Valentine’s Day for your preschoolers while working on specific math skills.
- Use this printable the traditional way and building real patterns the pattern blocks to the appropriate shapes in the heart.
- For more of a challenge, invite preschoolers to see how they can make the shapes using different pattern blocks.
- For example, can three green triangles make a trapezoid? Or what shapes can be used to make the yellow hexagons?
- For more of a challenge, invite preschoolers to try to copy the pattern on a separate tray, using the printable as a guideline, not a template.
- For younger preschoolers, help them choose one color/shape to find and add to the printable.
- It is common for younger preschoolers to get overwhelmed by a giant bowl of various shapes, so choosing one color is easier. Then, when they are placing the color on the printable, you can help them name the actual shape.
- For really young preschoolers (2-3 years), just let them add the pattern blocks however they choose.
- Simply being allowed to “play” with the pattern blocks helps the child build spatial awareness and fine motor skills, and it builds their confidence and independence as they get to make their own choices. Sit down next to the children and talk about the shapes and colors they are choosing and model making matches.
Books About Shapes for Preschool
We love using books as a springboard for our math learning and these shape books are our all-time favorites! Take a look below and see which ones are a great fit for your classroom.
- Parents caregivers preschool teachers and librarians seeking kids’ books that offer a fun way to…
- Thong, Roseanne (Author)
- Can you find what is round? What is square?
- In this timeless new split-pageboard book, children can find the bottom half of a page that matches…
- Blevins, Wiley (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- Walsh, Ellen Stoll (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- In print for over 20 years, the bestselling Bear series of books uses core concepts to support early…
- 24 pages
Valentine’s Day Math Activities for Preschoolers
We really love these additional math activities with a Valentine’s theme. It makes planning for this lovely holiday a snap!
- Valentine’s Day Button Drop – Graph and Counting Practice
- Heart Themed Counting Grid Game
- Count to 10 Heart Puzzles
- Valentine Math Puzzles
Valentine Math Worksheets For Preschool and Kindergarten
These math pages are a great way to practice more complex math skills like skip counting and addition too! Conversation heart candies make this math practice even more yummy too.
- Skip Counting Heart Numbers
- Heart Addition Math Mat
- Find and Dot Valentine’s Numbers
- Candy Heart Patterns
Grab Your FREE Valentine’s Pattern Blocks Printable Here
This you want to add this to your math center or busy box for quiet time? You can grab your own copy by clicking the image below!
Get More Fun and Engaging Valentine’s Math Activities for Preschoolers
Videos We Watch About the History of Valentine’s Day
I really believe there is a strong place for celebrating Valentine’s Day in preschool and kindergarten. Kindness matters, and so do caring friendships. Here are a few YouTube videos we watch in preschool as a way to get the discussion flowing.
I’m Sarah, an educator turned stay-at-home-mama of five! I’m the owner and creator of Stay At Home Educator, a website about intentional teaching and purposeful learning in the early childhood years. I’ve taught a range of levels, from preschool to college and a little bit of everything in between. Right now my focus is teaching my children and running a preschool from my home. Credentials include: Bachelors in Art, Masters in Curriculum and Instruction.
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