Marshmallow Hearts Math

E insisted on buying a bag of marshmallows the other day. I’m not crazy about her actually eating a whole bag just like that, so I immediately started thinking of OTHER things we could do with it.

The marshmallows she picked were mini colored ones, and they were pretty much screaming for using the colors in some way. I tied it into E’s improved number recognition and fine motor practice and came up with Marshmallow Hearts Math.

(E was 4 years and 3 months old.)

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Materials for Marshmallow Hearts Math:

• Colored mini marshmallows. {The colors aren’t essential, they’re mostly for fun. You can absolutely just use white marshmallows – or any other counters if you skip the toothpicks.}
• Pastel hearts template {download it here}.
• Red numbered hearts template {download it here}.
• Toothpicks (optional).

I laminated both hearts printables before cutting out the hearts for better durability. You can use them as is if you prefer. {Please note that after lamination, the colors became more faint than before, and it wasn’t easy for E to tell pink and orange apart anymore. I changed the printable to a slightly darker shade after I realized this.}

I was going to do numbers up to 10 but E was too impatient to get started, so I only cut out numbers 1-5 for a start. {There are numbers up to 25 in the printable I linked above.}

I set it all up for her on the table: Pastel hearts, mini marshmallows, red numbered hearts, toothpicks, and a cookie sheet to work on.

She randomly pulled numbers out of the little bowl

named them and put them on top of the pastel hearts.

Once each pastel heart had a number on it, she started out with the yellow marshmallows. After reading the number on the yellow heart out loud again, she started sticking the appropriate number of yellow marshmallows on one of the toothpicks. It made for excellent fine motor practice!

She repeated this process with the other colors.

After this first round, she started over but skipped the toothpicks this time, just placing the marshmallows right on top of the pastel hearts.

She finished up with another round, using toothpicks again, before she lost interest. And yes, she got to eat a few marshmallows, too 😉

Have you used marshmallows to do math? What should we do with the rest of the bag? Leave a comment below – I’d love to hear from you!

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