Counting Practice for Valentine's Day

I recycled a center that I made a couple of years ago.  My students are really struggling with counting their teen numbers.  This is a fun and CHEAP Valentine's Day math center that you could use in your classroom!

I purchased a couple of heart necklace packs at the dollar store, then I cut them up into various lengths for the kids to count the little hearts.

We use whiteboards a lot in my class to avoid wasting paper during center time.  The students took a necklace strand, counted the hearts, and wrote the corresponding number on the whiteboard.

They were engaged by picking the different colored heart strands.  I think their favorite part was feeling all of the necklaces between their fingers. ;)

I was happy to see after a couple of minutes they had list of numbers that they had counted to!  They read their list of numbers to a friend at their table.  

Easy and cheap...my two favorite things! :)