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I love being able to take simple supplies and turn them into a quick and easy learning activity. I grabbed a bunch of different packages of felt hearts from the Target Dollar Spot. At first I had no plan in mind, but then I challenged myself to think of 5 ways they could be used for learning activities with my daughters. Obviously at 3 and almost 5, their skill sets are a little different but they would both be able to do all of these activities at their own level.
I grabbed our felt boards (
directions to make your own found here) and the felt heart packages and we were ready. The felt numbers and letters are also from the Target Dollar Spot.
Counting Practice
For the first activity, I put the numbers 1-5 on the felt board for my 3 year old and spread out some hearts. I showed her how to count out the hearts to match the number. I would say what the number was and she would add hearts as we counted up to that number. Still a little tricky for her but it was good practice and she got it when I told her the number and helped her count.
Sorting by Size
Next up, I put the hearts all over the felt board. Then, I used the squares on our tile floor as dividers. I put a small heart in one, a medium heart in the next one and then a big heart in the last box. I told her to pick a heart from the board and put it in the right box to match the size. I was surprised that she got this concept right away and quickly sorted all of the hearts. I figured she would get hung up on the colors or the fact that the sizes aren't the exact same.
Sorting by Color
After the success with sorting by size, we put all the hearts back on the board. This time I put a different color heart in each tile/box and asked her to sort by color. Again, she did a great job with this even though there was a blue color and then a teal color but she just called it green and moved on. She also didn't get hung up on light pink versus dark pink. They all just went into the pink category.
Making Letters/Numbers
The next two activities, I saved for my almost 5 year old to do when she got home from preschool. For the first one, I put a letter on the board. Then I challenged her to use the hearts to make that letter. This could also be done to make numbers, spell names, spell sight words, etc. Obviously, the smaller size hearts work the best for this activity.
Patterning
My girls still love patterns and finding them around us and creating their own. With this activity, I had K use the hearts to create patterns. We are still just working on basic patterns and are starting to branch out of AB patterns.
There you have it. 5 quick, easy, minimal prep activities to pull out and do some hands on learning with your little ones. If you don't have a Target to grab these felt hearts, check a craft store. I've also linked a few on Amazon. Another idea would be to use
felt squares and then just cut them down to hearts (or any shape really).
100 Felt Hearts - Laser Cut
Assorted Felt Shapes 500 pieces
Hearts Assorted Sizes
Felt Letters
