If you've been looking for a quick and easy Valentine's Day math activity for kids, then you might want to try making a set of these DIY heart tangram puzzles.
They're easily customizable as you can make them as simple or as difficult as you like. And you can make them in a wide variety of colors! Heck, you don't even have to make hearts. You could try other shapes as well. Since Valentine's Day quickly approaching though, hearts it is!
You can even turn this tangram activity into busy bags when you're done. But, first, let's find out how to make these little foam heart puzzles.
What You Need for These DIY Heart Tangram Puzzles
Making your own tangram puzzles for kids is pretty easy to do. You only need two things:
- Craft foam sheets - Feel free to use whatever colors you want. Try to pick different colors for each puzzle though. That way you can tell which pieces go with which puzzle. You could also just use large foam hearts too if you don't want to cut your own.
- Scissors - To cut the craft foam into hearts and then puzzle pieces.
To make these tangrams, I first cut out four large hearts using a different color for each heart. (Or, if you are using large foam hearts like these, then you can skip this step.)
Then I cut each heart into random pieces. Some are more basic, like the purple one pictured below, but others, like the yellow one, have more pieces and are trickier to put together. Just be sure to tailor the puzzles to your child's skills and age.
You can store these tangram puzzles in little zipper seal bags and keep them as busy bags or present them on a tray like I did for a quick math activity.
Playing with DIY Tangram Puzzles for Valentine's Day
The boys loved putting these puzzles together. The purple one was probably the easiest one to assemble out of the four that I made. It was really the only one that three year old K could handle independently.
Here are a few action shows of five year old J building the puzzles. He was quick to notice when pieces were pointing the wrong direction (you can see him testing the different pieces below) and would fix them right away until the hearts were properly formed.
J (unsurprisingly) excelled at putting these puzzles together, even the ones that were trickier. Honestly, I think he appreciated the challenge!
These DIY heart tangram puzzles are part a Valentine's series called Show Me the Love. Here are some other ideas from my co-hosts:
Conversation Heart Sensory Play for Baby from House of Burke
Melt My Heart Valentine's Day Art from Still Playing School
