Valentines Counting Game

Here's a standard math/counting game with a bit of a Valentine's Day twist to it.  I set up a laminated hundreds-board, a spinner from a different board game, and a jar with exactly 100 heart-shaped mini-erasers.  The way you play the game is to take turns spinning the spinner (you could also use dice) and to count out that number of hearts and place them on the board until it is completely covered.

It's a good way of reinforcing identification of digits and introducing higher-order numbers to 100.  Older kids can use this type of activity to work on addition as well as other skills (like discussing odd-even numbers and what happens when you add an odd number to an even number, etc,,,).  The girls played the 'game' for a couple turns, and the E just wanted to put all the hearts down on the board without using the spinner.  She did a great job and was really proud when the board was completely covered.  She removed the hearts in random order and I called out the name of each number she was uncovering, which she liked.

Then I used dry-erase crayons to make a pattern on the other side of the laminated hundreds board (which has blank squares, and L placed the hearts on them to make a pretty design:

This was such an easy activity to set up, and the girls loved using the hearts instead of their usual manipulatives.