A Sweet Sorting Activity You Will Love

Judy — Thu, 01 Feb 2018 18:52:30 +0000

Do you find yourself leapfrogging from one holiday to the next through the school year? Are you searching for an easy to prepare hands-on Valentine’s Day sorting activity to engage your preschoolers or kindergarteners?

Be My Valentine Collect & Sort, a free partner activity, may be exactly what you’re looking for!

Do you need:

a busy bag to keep your toddler… well, busy for a few minutes?
a party activity that appeals to a group of preschoolers?
an inviting February math station for your kindergarteners?

The endearing animal illustrations (Purple Caterpillar) in this sorting activity will captivate your youngest learners while they strengthen their fine motor skills and match/ identify colors. Older learners have the opportunity to count, write numerals, represent quantities with ten frames and tally marks, graph, and compare quantities.

Have a kid who likes to spin? Another one who likes to roll? This sorting activity has it covered, with both spinner and cube options.

You will need:

Cardstock or paper for printing selected pages, Be My Valentine Collect & Sort
Laminator, optional
25 one-half to five-eighths inch counters (pompoms, buttons, or M & M’s) in red, white, and pink for each pair of players, with a more or less even color distribution

To prepare:

Choose to print Be My Valentine Collect & Sort in color or black/ white.
Choose to use a spinner or a cube. Print and cut. Color the black and white, if using. The spinner can be made with purchased hands; a paper clip and pencil; or a brad and paper clip. Score, fold and glue the cube.
Print one valentine game mat for each pair of players.
Print one sorting mat for each player (optional, 2 per page). Color code the black and white.
Choose and print one or both optional recording sheets.

To play Be My Valentine Collect & Sort:

Place 25 red, white, and pink counters in the spaces on the valentine mat.
Take turns with a partner.
Spin or roll.
Collect one counter that matches your color. Place the counter on your sorting mat, if using. If all the counters that match your color have been collected, you lose your turn.
Play until all the counters have been collected.

Count to find out how many of each color you collected. Which color did you collect the most of and the fewest of? Count to find out how many counters you collected in all. Who collected the most or the fewest?

Recording Sheets:

Follow-up with one or both of the recording sheets. The circles can be colored to match the color words.

Count how many of each color you collected. Write the number. Color spaces on the ten frame to match each quantity. Draw tally marks to match each quantity.
Count how many of each color you collected. Color the bars on the graph to match each quantity. Use the data on the graph to complete the statements.

Read my blog posts about this same collect and sort activity with a candy corn, American flag or turkey theme.

Additional Valentine’s Day Resources:

Check out my new Valentine’s Day resources!

Click on a link below to find even more Valentine’s Day-themed math resources, suitable for kindergarten, first, second, or third grade, in my TpT store!

We Love Elephants Number Sense 10-19; Kindergarten
Valentine Monkeys, Teen or -Ty Numbers; Kindergarten & 1st Grade
Flip and Compare With Love Bugs; Kindergarten & 1st Grade
Valentine’s Day Treasure Reports, Counting and Grouping by Fives or Tens; Kindergarten & 1st Grade Freebie
Valentine’s Mail Match, Numbers 11-120; 1st & 2nd Grades
Valentines in My Mailbox, A Base Ten Partner Activity; 1st and 2nd Grades
Valentine’s Day Treasure Reports, Counting and Grouping by Tens and Ones; 1st and 2nd Grade Freebie
We Love Our Pets, Hundreds, Tens, and Ones; 2nd & 3rd Grades

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