February Math Stations

Valentine's Day may not be until next week, but we are already celebrating with lots of heart themed activities. My kinders have definitely gone valentine crazy!

We've been practicing measurement, counting, graphing, patterns, and addition this week with our math stations. Most of these station activities are meant to be done using candy hearts, but I decided to save the candy for Valentine's day and we have been using foam hearts, plastic hearts, and heart erasers instead.

The kids have been LOVING these stations-my class loves using manipulatives and I guess all the cute little hearts are hard to resist!

Station 1: Candy Heart Patterns

(Students make a pattern with candy hearts (we used foam hearts) and then color in their pattern on the recording sheet. You can get this great freebie from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten.)



Station 2A: Counting Hearts

(I wrote numbers on a bunch of those little heart containers from Target, and then students had to put the containers in number order and fill them with the correct number of heart erasers. Simple number and counting review!)

Station 2B: Valentine Clip Cards

(Students count the monsters and then clip a clothespin onto the heart showing the correct number. Such an adorable activity! The heart clips are from Target and the monster cards are a freebie from Amy at The Resourceful Room. This is a pretty quick activity so that is why I had this game in the station 2 basket along with the heart containers counting game (above). Both games give great counting practice!). 

Station 3: Race to 50

(Students take turns rolling the die and covering up that many numbers on their game board. My kiddos used heart erasers to cover-up their game boards. First player to get to 50 wins. This fun freebie is from Shari Sloane's Kids Count website.)

Station 4: How Many Letters Graph

(Students took a conversation heart out of the bag, counted how many letters were on the heart, and graphed it on their paper. This station snuck in a little literacy too! This fun freebie is from The First Grade Parade.)

 

Station 5: Cupcake Addition

(Are these cupcake erasers not the cutest thing? Thank you Target! Students picked an addition card, placed cupcake erasers over the cupcake images on the card, and then recorded the addition problem and the answer on their recording sheet. This fun freebie is from Amy at The Resourceful Room and she even has cupcake subtraction cards if your kids are ready for that too!)

 

Station 6: Measuring Length with Hearts

(Students used hearts to measure the length of different classroom objects and then recorded their findings on the sheet. You can get my freebie recording sheet here.)

Station 7: Lovin' Addition Game

(I just love this type of addition mat. Students were given a bag with a mix of pink and purple plastic hearts (from Target). Then they put some purple hearts on the left side of their addition mat and some pink hearts on the right side of their addition mat. Finally they recorded the addition problem they'd made and the answer on the recording sheet. Even my struggling students were able to use the manipulatives successfully to do some simple addition problems! Grab this fantastic freebie from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten.)

Station 8: Measuring Weight with Hearts

(This was easily the most popular station this week-but also one of the more challenging ones too since it introduced a new skill. My students had never used a balance scale before, but now they are turning into pros! They weighed different classroom objects to see how many hearts they weighed. It took some real teamwork to count each heart as it was dropped into the balance's bucket. You can grab my free recording sheet here.)

Station 9: How Big is Your Heart?

(Students used little foam hearts to measure and then record how long different sized hearts were. You can grab the heart template and recording sheets for free from Mrs. Ricca's Kindergarten.) 

I hope your class is enjoying some valentine fun as well!