Control Alt Achieve: Hearts and Charts Google Sheets Math Activities

In an earlier blog post I shared a fun math activity using Google Sheets and Skittles candy as a project students could do to tie in with Halloween, but it could certainly be done any time of the year.

With Valentine's Day coming up, I was asked if I had a similar version of the activity using Valentine Conversation Heart candies. That sounded like a terrific idea, so I made a new version of the project that uses the seasonal heart candies with little messages on them.

Very much like the earlier Skittles activity, this "Hearts and Charts" Google Sheets project allows students to practice skills including:

🤔 Estimating
🖐 Counting
⚖️ Comparing
➕ Adding
➗ Dividing
📊 And Graphing

And the Sheet is self-checking, so it provides feedback to the students as they work through each problem, letting them know if that got it correct or not.

See below to get your copy of the template, as well as written directions on how your students can do the activity.

📄 Template

Get your own copy of the "Hearts and Charts" template using the link below.

"Hearts and Charts" template - Google Sheets link

You can also access this template at any time using the shortened link: bit.ly/hearts-sheet

After you get your own copy of the template, feel free to use it with your students however you need. For example, you could push out copies to your students through Google Classroom so each student can have their own copy and do the activities.

✅ Directions Tab

The first tab on the Sheet is the "Directions" tab. Here you will find some basic instructions for this project. These include:

Get a box of candy conversation hearts (but don't open it yet!)
Click on the "Activity" tab below.
Follow the directions on the "Activity" tab to do the activities.
Any box that is filled in with light yellow is a box where you will enter your answers.
Most boxes will check your answer and tell you if it is correct. If the answer cell turns green, then you got the correct answer! If the answer cell turns red, that is not correct. Try again!
Note: Your box of candy hearts may not have all of the colors listed. You can enter a "0" (zero) for colors you do not have.

⚡ Activity Tab

The next tab is the "Activity" tab. Here is where the students will do all of the activities for the project.

As they work down the page, there will be directions at each step to follow.
Anytime they need to enter their answers, there will be boxes that are shaded light yellow.
As they enter their answers, they will get immediate feedback on if the answer is correct or not by the box turning green or red.

Let's take a look at each activity.

🤔 Estimate your Hearts

First the student will estimate how many hearts they think are in their box, and also predict which color they think will have the most.

🖐 Count your Hearts

In this section the student will:

Sort their hearts by colors and count how many hearts of each color there are.
Add all the colors together and see how many hearts total are there.
Determine how far off their original estimate was by finding the difference between their estimate and the actual number.

⚖️ Compare your Hearts

In this next section the students will compare the amounts of the different colors of their hearts. Using a drop down menu for each problem, they will choose less than "<" or greater than ">" or equal to "=".

➕ Add your Hearts

In this next section the students will practice addition by adding together hearts of different colors. Again if they get the wrong answer, the box will turn red to let them know to try again.

➗ Divide your Hearts

Next the students will practice division by splitting up candy hearts into groups. In each problem they will divide the hearts into piles of 2, 3, 4, or 5, and then they will also see how many are left over to determine the remainder.

📊 Graph your Hearts

For the final math activity, the students will create a bar graph of their hearts.

For each color, the student will type the letter "h" into the boxes in the graph to show how many hearts there are of that color.
The boxes will turn the color of that heart to create a bar graph showing the amounts of each color.
When done, the student can check their work by clicking on the tab at the bottom titled "Chart" to see an automatically generated bar graph to compare with their graph.