We have way more conversation hearts at home this Valentine’s Day than my kids are eating, so I’m back with another fun Valentine’s Day STEAM Activity for Kids that uses conversation hearts!
I poured most of a bag of conversation hearts out onto our table and asked my toddler to start stacking them. She was a little confused, so I explained place one on top of the other and see how high she can stack them. She is only 3 and still developing her fine motor skills so this was very challenging for her to stack beyond 5 conversation hearts. So I helped by holding the stack for her as she added conversation hearts on top and we were able to stack 10 conversation hearts together!
Once my toddler was frustrated with stacking we moved on to a new challenge: sorting the conversation hearts by color. This was a little easier for her because she learned her colors last year, so she was able to move all the conversation hearts into five piles – for each color: orange, white, yellow, green, and pink (we didn’t have any purple because she ate them all 😉 ).
After the conversation hearts were sorted by color, I gave my toddler another challenge: count the conversation hearts in each pile. She is good at counting, but it is more challenging when they are in a pile instead of a neat row. I helped her lay the conversation hearts flat, but they were still in groups instead of straight lines. It was a fun challenge for her and she did well counting, and I helped her when she needed it.
When my big kids (ages 8 and 10) got home from school they wanted to join in on the stacking conversation hearts challenge. They were excited to see how high they could stack the conversation hearts and got pretty competitive with it. My 8 year old daughter was the winner at my house with highest stack of 12 conversation hearts.
I shared this activity in a fun video on my @engineering_emily Instagram account. We challenged everyone to try this activity at home and see if you can beat our 12 conversation heart stack. If you stack higher than us, take a picture and tag @engineering_emily on Instagram and I will reshare in my stories! You can view the video below:
Stacking, Counting, and Sorting Conversation Hearts STEAM Challenge
This Valentine’s Day activity is great for both toddlers and older kids. Toddlers can practice counting and sorting, and use their fine motor skills to try to stack the conversation hearts. This is where it becomes fun for older kids: challenge them to see how high they can stack the conversation hearts! My kids were very competitive to see who could stack it the highest. This activity is recommended for children ages 3+.
Materials:
- Conversation heart candies (at least 20, assorted colors)
Safety:
Conversation heart candies are a choking hazard to children under 3. Older children should be sure to thoroughly chew the hard candies before swallowing them. Wash hands before starting this activity, especially if the child may want to eat the candies after stacking them.
Procedure:
- Place 20 or more conversation hearts in assorted colors in front of your child.
- Challenge the child to stack the conversation hearts (explain to place one on top of the other and keep them in a vertical, centrally aligned plane).
- Challenge the child to sort the conversation hearts by color.
- Challenge the child to count how many conversation hearts are in each color pile.
- Continue to challenge the child to sort, count, and stack with these variations:
- Try stacking all one color or making patterns (white, green, yellow, white, green, yellow , etc).
- Count the conversation hearts in each stack before it falls.
- Name the colors in each stack before it falls.
- Can you stack higher than our best of 12 conversation hearts?
STEAM Concepts Learned:
This is a great way to practice early learning concepts like colors, sorting, and counting with toddlers. They get to play with (and eat a few) candies while practicing their colors and counting. It doesn’t feel like hard work or as frustrating when they’re playing with something new, fun, and delicious!
Stacking the conversation hearts is a great fine motor skills practice for toddlers and is a great building challenge for older kids. They have to first use their fine motor skills to carefully align the conversation hearts on top of each other.
The conversation hearts must be center aligned or the tower will lean and start to fall after just a few conversation hearts. Once you have the conversation hearts centrally aligned, as you build the stack taller you are fighting gravity. Gravity wants to pull the conversation hearts to the ground, so any small force such as a touch, or a conversation heart that is not perfectly aligned will cause the stack to fall.
Valentine’s Day STEAM Challenge
Do you think you can beat our winning stack of 12 conversation hearts? We challenge you to try stacking conversation hearts at home, and let us know in the comments how high you are able to stack your conversation hearts.
Why do you think conversation hearts are good for stacking, sorting, and counting activities?
They are great for this activity because of their shape and colors. The various colors make them fun to sort and the flat heart shape allows them to be stacked. I hope you enjoyed the activity!