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Valentine’s Day Ten Frame Counting Mats

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February 2, 2021 by Lauren Vaughan 2 Comments

Valentine’s Day ten frame counting mats are perfect for helping preschoolers learn to count and work on their number sense.

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, these ten frame counting mats are perfect for keeping little hands busy and mastering counting and fine motor skills! This February preschool theme is full of love, friendship, and kindness so these heart counting mats are sure to have your heart skipping a beat!

“There is only one happiness in life: to love and be loved.” – George Sand, Author

close up of a valentine counting mat for preschool showing the number four and the text 'valentine counting mats'

Related: Preschool Valentine’s Day Activities

Valentine’s Day Ten Frame Counting Mats

There’s a delicate balance when teaching math to preschoolers in using counting activities that kids are interested in and teaching effective math skills that you can see at the same time.

What I love about these ten frame mats is that children are learning number sense, how to read a number line, how to create the quantity, and we’ve differentiated these for both preschool and pre-k.

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Valentine Counting Mats for Preschool and Pre-K

These super sweet and fun ten frames are a free Valentine’s Day printable we are offering to all of our amazing subscribers. Not to mention all the other goodies you will love seeing pop up in your inbox!

Your freebie will have two sets of heart counting mats. The first set is for children who are just learning to count. The hearts will already be in the ten frame with the correct number.

First, show the child how to count to that number by slowly touching each heart. Then, have the child do it after you so that you can assess any areas that they might need help with, whether it’s counting or following their finger. Or just going too quickly.

close up of a valentine's day counting mat showing four hearts in a 10-frame for the number four

Related: Melting Hearts Color Exploration and Ice Play

The Magic of Ten Frames for Preschool Counting

Learning to count may seem like an easy skill, but that’s not necessarily true! There are actually 9 developmental stages of math learning that children go through before they ever get to subitizing! Subitizing is a fancy word for being able to look at a number and automatically recognize that number, without needing to count (when we see 5 on a domino, we know that it is five without counting).

Subitizing, one-to-one correspondence, and cardinality can all be easily taught with ten frames. It’s also great to teach with dominoes and dice. Young children need lots of repetition and practice and these ten frame counting mats do just the trick!

When children use ten frames to count, they can learn that an entire ten frame has ten and half of that has five. Then, you can expand it to two ten frames to help them learn to count to 20.

This is a process that can take months (or quicker if they catch on to math really easily), so give it time and be patient. But once it sinks in, that child will be able to use this foundational math knowledge for the rest of their lives.

That’s actually one of my favorite parts about teaching preschoolers. We are teaching them life lessons in these early years. And as someone who has older children myself, I can see what happens when we really help children understand these important math skills and how it sets them up for success later on.

preschool valentine counting mat for the number four

Related: Farm Animal Ten Frame Cards

Using Manipulatives with Valentine’s Day Counting Mats

In the build-it section, use any type of math manipulative for this. It could be conversation heart candies, heart erasers, LEGO Duplos/bricks, links, snap cubes, counting bears, etc. Whatever you have on hand or anything that your little learner loves will do just fine! Have the child build vertically or horizontally to create that number. Feel free to let them use sets or to make patterns. Whatever makes their heart happy to learn about math.

valentine counting sheet with the number 4 and four snap cubes stacked up vertically

Related: Colorful Hearts Sensory Bin for Valentine’s Day

There is also a number line on the ten frame counting mat where the correct number will be marked. This is a great way to reinforce that this number has significance. It’s not just a number we’re talking about. It has a special spot on the number line, and there is a value assigned to it.

On the “Make it or Write it” section, this is a great way to make the number with dice or dominoes. If your little learner already loves writing numbers, feel free to have him or her write it in. If the child needs extra support in handwriting, I would probably hold off on this. We want to focus on number sense, not handwriting. It’s important not to introduce too many skills at once because that can quickly overwhelm or frustrate a child. I’ll be making some number cards to work on handwriting soon so that you can focus on that, too!

a preschool counting mat themed for Valentine's Day showing a large dice for the number four

Related: Conversation Hearts Pre-Writing Practice

The Pre-K version of these Valentine counting mats is slightly harder. If a child breezes through the first set, which I’ll call the preschool counting mats, then they’re ready for this next set. This is really more about skills and less about age though.

The ten frames are left open for your student or child to fill in with any manipulative that you have around. These are perfect for mini erasers, gems, pom poms, and the like. I personally love something that I can grab real fast that’s already in the classroom or house.

*Don’t forget to have your little learner slide those manipulatives off the ten frame(s) and into the build it/make it section. This helps to build conservation of number – understanding that there is no need to recount the manipulatives because that number stayed the same since I did not add more or less to the amount.

Valentine's Day counting mat for pre-K showing the number six

Related: Valentine Hearts Number Recognition Activity

The second set of ten frame counting mats are also more advanced on the number line. Have your little learner circle the correct number. I make these into a dry erase surface by laminating them or putting them in a dry erase pocket.

And there you have it — math made fun!

Done-For-You Valentine’s Day Resources

Spend less time lesson planning with done-for-you lesson plans and unit studies! Click on the image below to learn more about each lesson plan. These pair perfectly with our Valentine’s Day Counting Mats!

cover image for Preschool Valentine's Lesson Plans
cover image for Preschool Hearts Lesson Plans
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Lauren Vaughan
Lauren Vaughan
I am an educator, book enthusiast, and a stay at home momma to a precious and long-awaited little boy and girl. My degree is in Early Childhood Education and Curriculum and Instruction and I have spent the last 15 years working with littles. I feel very fortunate to have this time to watch my babies grow and I can’t wait to share my passion for learning and reading with you!
Lauren Vaughan
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Filed Under: Math, Valentine's Day Tagged With: math activity for preschoolers

Comments

  1. Mary says

    January 10, 2024 at 11:43 pm

    Hi! There seems to be some technical issue, I haven’t received the email with the valentine’s mat free printable. I have tried on two different days (I did check my spam folder).

    Reply
    • Katie T. Christiansen says

      January 14, 2024 at 9:42 am

      Hi Mary,

      Thank you for reaching out! I just manually sent them over to you! I hope you enjoy them :).

      Warmly,

      Katie

      Reply

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I'm Katie, and I'm a veteran preschool teacher, child development research junkie, and mom of three who lives on little sleep and turns my kitchen into an art and science laboratory.

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