Valentine's Day Math Center Activity and a Giveaway

What a nice surprise it was to have an ice day today and get caught up on some things! I'm trying to get ahead with my February planning! 

As you know, I've been making my way through the common core checklist and using that checklist to guide my planning while trying to work in various monthly themes for January like penguins, Dr. King and of course for February, Valentine's Day!

This is a fun activity I will use as an educational center during our Valentine's Day celebration. It's a shake and toss (on/off) activity with conversation hearts and a mat. I used a similar activity last year for St. Patrick's Day with green bingo chips and my firsties loved it! I modified the activity so my second graders that looped up with me can use it this year with sums to twenty. 

I found these large candy hearts that I like better than the tiny ones for this kind of activity. After the game, each child will get a small box of untouched :) hearts as a prize for playing along! That way, I can reuse the large hearts next year.

To see more click on the picture below! The set comes with directions, a fun, colorful game mat and two versions of the recording sheet. One has sums to ten, the other sums to twenty. It's just $1.25 at my TPT shop. 

I also added some more practice pages and some posters for properties of addition and strategies for addition to my new addition with four, two-digit numbers set. My kids are really starting to get the hang of this and I have seen great progress in their written responses too!

As usual, with new items, leave me your email in the comments below and I'll randomly select three to get them free! :)

I'm looking for an easy, inexpensive whole-class activity or project for 100's Day. I need an idea for a 20 minute rotation with four second grade classes that can be managed with just little old me~ so Fruit Loop necklaces are out!! I'd love to hear your awesome suggestions! 

This week, we continue with our penguin nonfiction unit and research reports. I'll be back soon to share some photos, ideas and a links to some awesome penguin purchases I made that you may want to check out too!

Hooray for another four day week!