Making Patterns with Candy Hearts and Free Printables

  As I've mentioned before, we love all things Valentine's around here.  I've been coming up with fun and educational ways for my 4 year old to play with candy conversation hearts. I thought it would be fun for her to work on some math skills by making candy heart patterns.To help her practice this skill, I started by creating simple patterns using the candy hearts in a mini muffin tin.  I would make a pattern of colors along one row and then ask Pooky to finish the pattern. I gradually made the patterns more difficult as she showed me she was ready for more of a challenge.The only drawback with this activity was that the muffin tin only had four rows (going horizontally) so I decided to create some printables that she could use to practice even more patterns. (You will find the links for the printables at the end of this post.)This activity is easy to set up. Just give your child(ren) some candy hearts and the printable. (Note: I recommend using the bag of conversation hearts instead of the individual boxes to ensure you have enough candy. One box will not be enough.) Instruct the child to work from left to right across one line of hearts at a time. Match a candy heart to its corresponding color on the sheet. The grey heart (with dotted lines) at the end of the row is meant for children to independently solve what color heart should come next in the pattern.If your child is ready for a little more of a challenge, use the second sheet.  The complete line of grey hearts at the bottom allows children to create their own pattern with the candy hearts.As an extension activity, give the child the third printable and ask them to create more of their own candy heart patterns leaving the last heart of each row blank for you or a friend to solve.My daughter has really enjoyed this challenge. Of course, she also enjoyed eating a few of the candy hearts at the end of the activity. If you don't want to use candy with this activity, you could substitute heart stickers or construction paper cut-out hearts.If you think your child would enjoy this activity too, you can download the free printables from the links below. Be sure to share with others who you think would enjoy making candy heart patterns. (Just pin the picture below, or use one of the social media buttons at the end of this post.)Candy Heart PatternsCandy Heart Patterns 2Candy Heart Patterns 3 Also, If your child likes math activities, they may enjoy practicing counting to ten with these heart printables.Happy Valentine's Day!