These Valentine's Day math art activities make a day of candy and hearts fun for all kids!
Kids not into the lovey-dovey aspect of Valentines' Day? Obviously, you need to turn to mathematics for inspiration! Bookmark this collection of twelve Valentine's Day math art ideas because you are going to want to do every single one!
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Many of the projects below include several of the STEAM subjects (math, art/design, and sometimes engineering) and those ideas earn extra love! Best of all, none of these Valentine's day math art ideas use boring worksheets!
Heart Tessellations
Heart tessellations can be done for fun, turned into valentine cards, or included in classroom lessons on Valentine's Day. Our instructions include three different ways to draw heart tessellations.
Heart Geometry Puzzle
You kids can put their problem solving skills to the test when they attempt to arrange 22 triangles into this heart geometry puzzle. Turn this puzzle into a valentine card by slipping the pieces into a red envelope and adding a few cupid-inspired words. The triangles can be used to form other valentine shaped math art as well. Our instructions include a free printable template to make the puzzle.
Origami Heart Bookmarks
Make origami heart bookmarks to show your love of reading and math art at the same time! When you think of origami, you may think of paper crafts instead of math, but the paper folding technique uses mathematical principles. We have two different heart bookmark folding methods with two for those of you who prefer to watch instead of read instructions. One of the videos is below; visit the written origami heart bookmark instructions to see the other. I ask you, what book loving friend wouldn't love to receive one on Valentine's Day?
Möbius Hearts
Amaze your friends and family when you demonstrate that "love wins" as you use the magic of topology to turn two Möbius strips into interlocking hearts. Seriously, this clever Valentine's Day math art idea has a big WOW factor! Your kids will want to figure out how it works over and over!
Valentine's Day STEAM Projects
Our Valentine's Day STEAM Kids ebook is chock full of more ideas that use math, science, engineering, technology and design. The easy to learn projects are designed for use in classrooms and at home and stimulate creative and logical thinking skills.
More "Math Heart" Projects
Science Friday shows you how to make some really cool mathy valentines with hearts. They give you mathematical instructions for graphing heart dilations, heart translations, reflections and rotations!
Babble Dabble Do has a printable for kids to make three dimensional paper hearts. This Valentine's Day project will teach symmetry and think how amazing a room decorated with a bunch of 3D hanging hearts would look!
Similar to our parabolic curve art, Almost Unschoolers shows you how to adapt the idea into a heart string art project that works number skills.
A heart geoboard pattern from Little Bins for Little Hands is excellent for working fine motor skills and although kids can make predetermined patterns, free exploration is encouraged. Children will learn about geometry, shapes, patterning and symmetry.
Speaking of geometry, a heart tangram challenge adds a little Valentine love into working with geometry, puzzles and patterns. Tangrams are centuries old dissection puzzles that came out of China. Once you printout the tangram pieces, the math art possibilities are endless.
Have you ever heart of Pascal's triangle? It's a fascinating number pattern. Teach Beside Me adds a Valentine theme twist to their Pascal's triangle project.
Got advanced mathematicians in the family? They will want to spend Valentines' Day graphing these heart curves.
If your kids are really drawn to traditional arts and crafts projects, get out the paints and construction paper and teach them about symmetry using hearts with this activity for younger kids, or this pop out card project for older kids.
There you have it, twelve ways to turn a holiday about LOVE into a holiday celebrating MATH!
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