For the Love of Math: Valentine’s Day Heart Activities to Learn About Shapes - DREME (2024)

Around Valentine’s Day, heart-shaped pictures appear in many homes, classrooms, and community spaces. Take advantage of these images to help children explore key early math concepts aboutshapes, lines, and symmetry. This exploration supports children’s understanding that shapes have distinct features and properties. Here are some ideas for exploring math in Valentine’s decorations.

Discuss Features of Heart Shapes

Find or create hearts and use them to talk about shapes.(See the video above for examples.) To create your own paper heart, fold a piece of paper in half so the edges meet. Starting from the side closest to the fold, draw half of a heart.

Encourage childrento discuss what they see, such as the curved line at the top of the heart, or how the curve slowly becomes straighter as it reaches the bottom. If children have difficulty identifying features of the shape on their own, try modeling an example or directing their attention to a specific part of the shape. Then cut along the line.

Predict How Shapes Change

Before unfolding the heart, ask children to predict what the folded shape will look like when it is unfolded:

  • How wide or tall will it be?
  • Will there be any points on the heart? Where, and how many?
  • Will the heart be symmetrical?

Look for Shape Symmetry

Unfold the heart you created. What do you notice?If you split this heart vertically down the middle, the two sides are symmetrical, or exactly the same on both sides. This is not true if you split the heart in half horizontally! In fact, it is difficult to divide a heart exactly in half horizontally because there is more of the shape on the top of the heart than on the bottom. This means that this heart has only one line of symmetry, unlike squares and rectangles, which have many lines of symmetry.

Compare different examples of hearts to discuss which hearts are symmetrical and which are not. You can explore symmetry further by folding hearts vertically in half to see if the twosidesare, in fact, identical.

For the Love of Math: Valentine’s Day Heart Activities to Learn About Shapes - DREME (1)

Make Hearts of Different Sizes

If using standard 8 ½ by 11 paper, fold one piece vertically in half and another piece horizontally in half. This will naturally lead to some differences in height and width among the hearts that children draw and cut out. Compare the shapes before and after unfolding and discuss how they differ from each other.

Plan the next heart by asking questions like:How can we make a heart that is shorter or longer than the first one you made? Can we make a heart that will fit inside this big heart? Make several hearts of increasing sizes so that children can compare them.

Ideas for Further Learning

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Make detailed comparisons.See different examples of lines and symmetry to spark conversations.

Combine shapes into new shapes.Have children explore howshapes can be combined to create new shapes. Use tangrams orour templateto construct your own heart puzzle from triangles and semi-circles. Thesepuzzles provide opportunitiesto explore ideas of space and place as children physically and mentally rotate pieces to fit inside the puzzle.

Explore geometry.The closest geometric shape to the typical Valentine’s Day heart is thecardioid. Introduce cardioids andcomparethem tothe hearts you created.Arecardioidssymmetrical? Do they have points at the bottom? Do the sides of cardioids become straighter like hearts do?

For the Love of Math: Valentine’s Day Heart Activities to Learn About Shapes - DREME (2)

Happy Valentine’s Day!

For the Love of Math: Valentine’s Day Heart Activities to Learn About Shapes - DREME (2024)

FAQs

What is the shape of the Valentine's heart based on? ›

Thought to be a contraceptive, silphium's association with sex might have caused the heart-shape to become associated with love. Some think the heart-shape is a stylized depiction of human anatomy, representing the curved shape of breasts, buttocks, or genitalia.

What mathematical shape is a heart? ›

What is cardioid in Maths? A cardioid is a heart-shaped plane figure that is defined as the locus of a point lying on the circumference of a circle that is rolling externally without any slip on the boundary of another circle of the same radius.

What is an example of a heart shape? ›

Examples of heart shapes around us are strawberry, peepal leaf, heart shaped balloon, heart shaped pendant, etc.

Why is the shape of the heart ❤? ›

One is that the heart shape comes from the shape of the leaves of a now-extinct plant called silphium, which was considered a key component of a love potion in the time of the Romans. Another theory is that St. Valentine used the symbol when arranging secret marriages.

What does the love heart symbol mean? ›

The heart symbol is an ideograph used to express the idea of the "heart" in its metaphorical or symbolic sense. Represented by an anatomically inaccurate shape, the heart symbol is often used to represent the center of emotion, including affection and love, especially romantic love.

What is ❤? ›

Read on to learn more about heart emojis and their meanings. Emoji Icon: ❤️ Emoji Name: Red Heart. Emoji Meaning: A classic red heart symbolizes love, affection, and strong emotions. Emoji Icon: 🧡

What is a fun fact about the heart shape? ›

The iconic heart shape as a symbol of love is traditionally thought to come from the silphium plant, which was used as an ancient form of birth control. If you were to stretch out your blood vessel system, it would extend over 60,000 miles. Heart cells stop dividing, which means heart cancer is extremely rare.

What shape is your heart like? ›

The shape of the heart is similar to a triangle, rather broad at the superior surface and tapering to the apex (see Figure). A typical heart is approximately the size of your fist. Given the size difference between most members of the sexes, the weight of a female heart is smaller on average than the male's heart.

How to teach kids about the heart? ›

Describe it as a small, powerful muscle in our chest that works like a pump. It sends blood around our body to keep us alive and healthy. Use comparisons that children can relate to, like saying the heart is like a little engine that keeps our bodies running.

What is the description of the heart for kids? ›

The heart is a pump, usually beating about 60 to 100 times per minute. With each heartbeat, the heart sends blood throughout our bodies, carrying oxygen to every cell. After delivering the oxygen, the blood returns to the heart. The heart then sends the blood to the lungs to pick up more oxygen.

Is the heart shape based on a woman's buttocks? ›

A professor of psychology who studied the symbolism, origin and history of Valentine's Day said the traditional double-lobed heart symbol on candy and cards is inspired by the shape of female buttocks as they appear from behind, according to Discovery News.

What is the heart shaped box about? ›

The novel is a contemporary Gothic story about Judas “Jude” Coyne, a retired rock star hunted by a ghost. His confrontation with the ghost forces him and his girlfriend, Marybeth “Georgia” Kimball, to confront their respective pasts and current relationship.

What shape were candy hearts originally? ›

In the 1860s, another Chase brother, Daniel, developed a machine that stamped words directly on the candies with red vegetable dye. Back then, the candies came in all different shapes, like baseballs, horseshoes, and watches, and they featured much longer sayings. (Hearts weren't added to the lineup until 1901.)

How do you type ♡? ›

There is only one representation of the heart symbol text by an Alt Code value. The Alt Code value of the heart sign is 3. You can easily text love heart just by using Alt key, and number 3 on your keyboard.

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