A typical Valentine’s Day Math card Activities is always a hit with students, but there are so many more ideas out there! The options are endless! looking for unique ways to celebrate 14th February with your students, look no further!
I want to share three Valentine’s Day Math Activities that you can use in the classroom or at home for distance learning. These come in print and digital format to accommodate learners everywhere.
When math problems can channel your students’ excitement for Valentine’s Day into meaningful learning experiences, engagement will skyrocket!
Math Riddles in Decoder Puzzles
Students love to solve riddles. I grew up solving decoder puzzles that were on the back of cereal boxes and prizes in Cracker Jack boxes. To this day, kids love solving puzzles to uncover secret messages. This old-time favorite can be easily applied to elementary math concepts:
- Multi-digit addition and subtraction
- Multi-digit multiplication and division
- Decimal addition and subtraction
- Decimal multiplication and division
Tie a Valentine’s Day theme to your puzzles, and you have a great holiday activity for your class to enjoy! You can even add a competitive spin, and award a “special prize of sweets” to the first 3 students who solve the riddles.
I’ve created engaging Valentine’s Day math activities that are designed for 4th grade but can also be used as remediation or enrichment for 5th grade classrooms. With the “Valentine’s Day Math Riddles–Arithmetic Fun Pack“, your students will have fun decoding funny messages, while reinforcing their math skills. The riddle answers are cute and clever. Here is a sample:
- Question: What do you call two birds in love? Answer: Tweethearts
- Question: Who said you light up my life to their Valentine? Answer: A firefly
This no prep activity is great to use in groups or with individual students.
- Homework
- Independent Practice
- Math Centers
- Early Finisher Activities
- Distance Learning and Remote Teaching
If you would like to grab this holiday themed resource, click here! You won’t regret it!
Color Coded Math Facts
Another unique idea is to use holiday-themed images, and then add math problems into sections of each picture. Art integration is one of the most effective ways to engage students.
Color-coded printables come with plenty of math problems on each sheet! These activities kill two birds with one stone–your students can combine basic operations with art for a win-win Valentine’s Day lesson.
Color-coded activity sheets are a great review of math facts and are also great for “discreet” differentiation. As the teacher, you know which students need a challenge and can do the division sheets and which students might still need remediation practice with subtraction.
Students can practice number matching, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing with these fun color by code pictures that turn into Valentine art! They are perfect for math centers, morning work, early finishers, substitutes or homework.
I’ve got you covered just in time for the holiday! You can grab my Color-Coded Decimal Pack for your students today! It’s great for 5th and 6th graders that need reinforcement with decimal operations. It includes 5 Valentine’s Day themed images that students will fill with many lovely colors.
Red Dice and Valentine’s Day Games
Are dice holiday-appropriate? In my book they are! If your dice are red, then you’re really in the spirit of Valentine’s Day! There are plenty of math games that you can create with dice. The possibilities are endless!
Dice are defined as throwable objects which may come to rest on a number of different sides/positions, and are used as a way of generating random results.
Roll two dice and you can use the outcome values to practice ANY topic in mathematics:
- Addition/Subtraction
- Multiplication/Division
- Number Comparison (Greater than or less than)
- Order of Operations
- Fractions
- Probability/Statistics
- And More!!
Add Valentine-themed decor to your activities, and you are set! Below are some simple templates you can use to create your own dice games.
These formats above are just two of several ways you can implement dice rolling to reinforce math concepts. The dice assign the numbers, and you can apply a math concept/operation to the numbers rolled.
Dice games are that simple!
There are a variety of dice designs to choose from. Six-sided versions are just one of many. These different designs can open the doors to create dozens of game packets for your classroom!
Conclusion: Your Students will Appreciate You!
Bring some seasonal themes to your math curriculum, and your students will appreciate it! They will look forward to you meshing the holidays with their math activities.
The resource ideas I shared with you above provide differentiation, and can be an effective way of meeting the diverse needs of your students. Setting up math stations in your classrooms? The ideas listed in this article are perfect activities to add to your math centers.
I hope you enjoyed this post! If you would like more tips and ideas from me, be sure to follow me on Teachers Pay Teachers, Pinterest, and Facebook to stay connected with the latest news and freebies!
Do you have any other cool ideas you want to share with follow teachers? Put them in the comments below. Share the wealth!
FAQs
1) Decoding Valentine’s Day riddles: Decoder puzzles, like those that used to be found on the back of cracker jack boxes, can be integrated with math. Several math topics will work. The possibilities are endless.
2) Valentine candy statistics: Buy bags of valentine’s day candy, and create a statistics activity. The students can work in groups to develop frequency tables, bar graphs, pie graph and tally tables and line graphs. Depending on the grades, some kids can calculate the mean, mode and standard deviation.
3) Color-coded math facts: Another unique idea for Valentine’s Day is to use holiday themed images, and then add math problems into sections of each picture. Art integration is one of the most effective ways to engage students.
1) Bingo is one of the most popular games to integrate with math. One idea is to mesh fraction review with a Valentine’s Day theme. The winner can be rewarded with a holiday grab bag or a bag of candy.
