Love is in the air! Valentine’s Day brings excitement to the classroom, and it’s a perfect opportunity to help students think about giving and sharing, instead of just receiving. In honor of this sweet, heart-filled holiday, this engaging math lesson uses conversation hearts to strengthen upper-grade math skills.
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Give each student (or partner pair) a small bag of conversation hearts. First, have students estimate how many hearts are inside. (Tip: For easier decimal and percent conversions, fill bags with either 20 or 25 hearts.) Next, students count and sort the hearts by color, recording each color as a fraction. Remind them that the total number of hearts is the denominator, and each color group is the numerator.
Since bags contain either 20 or 25 hearts, review how to change fractions into decimals and percentages. Students multiply hearts from bags of 20 by 5 to reach 100%, and hearts from bags of 25 by 4 to reach 100%.
After creating charts or graphs to display their results, students analyze their data by writing statements such as: “I have 3/20 pink hearts,” or “I have more purple hearts than white hearts because 9/20 > 2/20,” or “I have fewer green hearts than orange hearts because 30% is less than 70%.”
Once all math work is finished and recorded, students can celebrate by eating their conversation hearts. Click HERE or the image below to download a copy of this fun and meaningful Valentine's math lesson.
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