Heart Match/Musical Chairs

These number matching hearts can be placed in your math center or used in a game of musical chairs to help your little ones with number recognition and counting.

 Materials:  Construction paper, Sharpie, heart stickers, scissors, Ziploc bags

 Draw a large heart onto a piece of construction paper.  Make one heart for each number you wish to represent.

 Cut out heart.

 Cut heart in half.

 Write numeral on one side of heart.

 Put corresponding hearts on the other half.

 Make a set of hearts with as many numbers as you would like to review.  The higher the number, the smaller the heart stickers you will use so that they fit on the heart half.

 You may place all the pieces into a Ziploc bag and place in your math center for your little ones to match.

 Children dump out contents of the bag and proceed to match the hearts.

Musical Chairs:
The hearts can also be used to play musical chairs.  Make sure to have enough numbered hearts as you have children.  Children hold one half of heart and the remaining halves are place on the chairs. Make sure to have one chair for each child...no children have to be "out" in this game.  When music stops, encourage children to find a match for their heart.  When they find their match they sit on the chair where they find their match.  To play again, each child places half of their heart on their chair and then trade their other half with a classmate.

Number Heart Match

Make this number match for you Math Center this Valentine's Day!  All you need is an old deck of playing cards!

 Materials:  Deck of cards, scissors, plastic bag

 If you will be making this number match game thematic for Valentine's Day, pull out all the heart suits.  If not, use the whole deck.  If you are using it for number matching, leave out the un-numbered suits.  If you are just doing basic matching, use the whole deck.

 Cut each card in a zig-zag pattern horizontally.

 Place all the cards in a plastic bag and place in your math center.

 Children visit the math center, dump the cards out and proceed to try to match the cards.

If you want to focus on the actual number of the suits, make sure to not cut through them.  That way, when the children match them you can help them count the suits as well.  Ex. "1,2,3,4,5 clovers plus 1,2,3 clovers equal 8 clovers all together.  Let's count all the clovers to check and see if we are correct.  1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. It's a match!"