This heart letter matching activity is a great way to have extra practice with lowercase letter recognition in the month of February. Match the uppercase letters to the lowercase letters to fix the broken hearts. These Valentine’s Day letter puzzles are the perfect addition to literacy centers or can be turned into a file folder game. The letter cards include all of the letters of the alphabet.
Targeted Skills
- visual discrimination
- letter identification
Set Up
- Print the heart shapes onto card stock.
- Cut around each heart.
- Cut along the dotted line in the middle of each alphabet heart. Have the children practice using scissors to cut along the dotted line. This is a fun idea for strengthening scissor skills and if the valentine hearts aren’t cut exactly in half that is ok. It just gives an extra clue for completing the matching pair. I love simple ways like this to involve the children in the preparation of the activity.
Directions
- Start with half of a heart that has a capital letter.
- Look for the matching lowercase letter.
- Continue to find pairs of letters to complete the puzzles.
Tips
- Make sure that your students are solid in their capital letter identification before adding in lowercase letters.
- For younger children, start with just two or three matching letters. I have found it helpful to work with upper case letters and lower case letters that look similar to each other to start with. (C, F, I, J, K, L, M, O, P, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z) This is a good place to start because it builds confidence.
- After your students are confidently matching three pairs that look similar. This is a great time to introduce one pair that doesn’t look alike. For example, I will give them each two hearts that they already can identify because they look similar and then one match that is new and might be a challenge to match up. This gives them a lot of practice but doesn’t overwhelm them with too many choices.
- Older Children may be ready to handle three to five pairs at one time.
- Some children may be ready for the challenge of putting all of the capital letters in alphabetical order by singing the alphabet song and then matching all of the lowercase letters to them. This requires a lot of space and time for the children to revisit this task if they are not able to finish it. Kids will have a great time working together to complete all of the puzzles.
Other Ideas
- Put magnets on the back of the heart shapes and work with them on vertical surface such as an easel or a fridge. Working on a vertical surface is important for preschool children as it develops their wrist rotation.
- Match the letters that spell your name.
- Print a set of hearts for each child and allow them to cut along the dotted lines for more practice with scissors. Use the pieces of the hearts to make a collage. Just add glue, beads and buttons, and glitter.
Download and Print the Heart Letter Matching Free Printables
Clipart from Creative Clips
Preschool Valentine’s Day Activities
Here are more of our favorite activities to try this Valentines Day!
Use pom poms, mini erasers, buttons, or candy hearts to count from 1 to 10.
February Roll and Cover Dice Games
Children love rolling the die and covering the pictures to fill the ten frame. Because this game is so quick, children love to revisit it over and over again.