Valentine's Day Fun With Conversation Candy Hearts

I’d like to wish all of my readers a Happy soon-to-be Valentine's Day.  It’s my favorite holiday.  One of the things I do during February involves NECCO’s  (New England Confectionary Company’s) conversational candy hearts.  I did a little research and wanted to give you an FYI in case you're looking for some last-minute things to plug in for your Valentine's Day parties, although you could also use the candy hearts throughout this heart and friendship-themed month. 

History of the Hearts:

The 164 year old company isn't the only manufacturer of hearts printed with cute quips (Palmer and Brach’s) also sells a similar variety as does Jelly Belly; and why not, with such a tremendous demand for this sweet little treat. 

According to the National Confectioners Association, “About 8 billion hearts will be produced this year!” They say “…that’s enough hearts to stretch from Rome, Italy to Valentine, Arizona and back twenty times!”  The company has to produce 100,000 pounds of hearts a day to meet that demand as they sell that amount in 6 weeks during their peak Valentine’s Day season.

“Motto Hearts” as they were first called have been around since Abraham Lincoln’s presidency, and were popular during the Civil War as a crisp little candy with a paper note tucked inside a “Cockle” much like a fortune cookie.  They looked like a shell.  One could find a rather long note asking:  "Please send a lock of your hair by return mail.”

In 1866, Daniel Chase, the brother of NECCO’s founder, Oliver Chase, invented the process of printing words on the candies.  They were written in red dye and were an instant success, especially as wedding party favors.  More recently, the US post office even created a stamp featuring two of them.  For a full history of the company, click on the link. 

Activities:

I give my students each 10 hearts and have them count them, sort them by color, graph the results, and then we graph our color results as a whole group.  I also do addition and subtraction skills with them.  I call out various equations, write them on the board and have them arrange the equations with their hearts, raising their hands when they’ve figured out the answers.

Graphing Activities:

After they are done using their hearts for our activities, I let them sample one of each color to decide which is their favorite flavor. They also decide which one is their favorite color and we graph the results.  In 2010 NECCO introduced new flavors; strawberry, green apple, grape, orange, and blue raspberry as opposed to the traditional cherry, (pink) banana (yellow) and wintergreen (white).  Click on the link to view/print the candy heart graphing.  

In The Colors Of My Heart  students make a cute cut and glue candy heart booklet that reviews the colors as a great reading and writing extension.

For a different writing extension, have your students copy the sayings from several of their hearts onto a sheet of paper, make their own conversation heart, color it, and deliver it to a family member.  I also have my students do several writing activities involving the hearts including making a little booklet entitled: “Let’s Have A Conversation” and several skill sheets where they write and trace the sayings that are pictured on the hearts.   Click on the link to check it out.  Candy Heart Packet 32 pages filled with conversation heart activities including math.

I was not aware until I started doing research for this article that each Valentine’s Day NEECO makes up new messages on the candy hearts. Last year was the first time the American public was invited to join an online survey to decide on what they wanted the messages of love to be.  My favorites:  "Tweet Me", Text Me", "Love Bug" and "You + Me". The year before that had a theme of “food”. I liked: "Recipe 4 Love", "Table 4 Two" and “Yum-Yum”. Some sentiments have been in circulation since being made in a factory in 1902; like "Kiss Me", and "Be Mine".  In 2003 it was the “School” theme with “Teach me” “Let’s read.” “Write me.” and “Whiz Kid” To see an archive of the sayings from past years click on the link.  

Writing Extensions:

• A fun writing extension for your students would be to run off my template on a variety of the 6 NEECO colored pastel hearts using construction paper.  Fold the paper and remind students to keep it folded.  Children cut on the line, and then open their paper to reveal a heart.  My students always seem to be amazed at this “magical” concept of symmetry.  It’s a nice teachable moment to review that vocabulary word.  Heart template
• Brainstorm some things they could put on their hearts and then write them on the board for them to copy.  My students enjoy cutting out the hearts so much that they want to do several in a few different colors, so make sure you run off extra copies.  We also discuss fun places to leave their “secret” messages, perhaps on a pillow, on the car seat, in the glove box or a briefcase, in the silverware drawer. Someone is bound to say on the toilet seat and giggles will ensue so we have a lot of fun with this.  They seem to enjoy the activity so much more because of the excitement of making “paper love” for someone special in their life and having it be a secret surprise!
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• I don’t limit what my students say on their hearts, but space is an issue on the real ones because of their size. The two sizes are a standard ½" and the larger ¾". Somebody got rather creative fitting a few words from longer phrases such as "EZ 2 Love". The small hearts generally fit no more than two words with four letters each, while the large hearts may accommodate two words with six letters each.
• Another reading/writing extension would be for you to share past sentiments written on the hearts with your students, have them count the letters so they realize that the new messages that they dream up will have to be that short.  Give them a few minutes to brainstorm some ideas of sentiments they’d like to see on future hearts and write them on the board.  Perhaps you’d like to carry it a step further, compose a letter to NEECO, have all of your students sign it, and send it to the company.  Their headquarters is in Revere, Massachusetts.

 Create A Paper Conversational Heart!

While surfing, I found a rather fun site where you can make your own conversation heart and then print it off via the “copy and paste image” method.  Click on the link.

You can choose any of the 6 colors. I had fun making several for my husband including the one in the photo.  If your student’s names are short (Less than 4 letters.) you can make one for each of them, or make a generic saying and then add their names after you print them off, such as the URAQT one that I made up on the yellow heart. (You are a cutie!)  You could also type in some of your shorter word wall words.

This could also be a fun computer center for students to do independently.

 Custom Made Hearts:

If a piece of paper just doesn’t do it for you, and you need the real thing NECCO does let you buy a custom-made print run with your special message! This amounts to over a million hearts though, (1.7 million to be exact) but the company says their hearts have a shelf life for freshness of 5 years! That should be plenty of time to eat or share them.

Otherwise, simply buy a small box, file off the saying with an emery board and using a food pen, write your own messages.  Put them back in the box and tuck them under that special someone’s pillow, or put your students’ names on them, or you could make up a batch using your word wall words and set this up as a center so that students can use them to make simple sentences! While you’re at it, make a batch with numbers so that students can sequence too.

Conversational Heart Recipe:

I also found a site with a recipe for the conversation hearts.  In their photo they made some quite large so you could write just about anything on them.  It looked like a fun thing to do with “kids in the kitchen”.  Click on the link to check out the good time.

 Puzzle Fun:

• One of the things you could make with the pictures of the hearts that your students design is a puzzle.  Help them copy and paste their image, enlarge it to a specific size and then print it off. Demonstrate how to draw puzzle shapes on their heart, by making your own sample.  Students draw puzzle lines on their candy heart and cut it out.  Students trace their heart onto a sheet of paper making a template; students put their puzzles together.
• I do a puzzle game in my Candy Heart Packet that you could also make with these online pictures.  Make 6 different pictures. Divide the photo into 6 equal pieces and number each piece.  Laminate the pictures, cut them out.  Make a white-copy template that has the 6 sections on it.  6 students can play this game.  Each child picks a partner.  They roll the dice; whatever number they roll they put that puzzle piece on their template.  If they’ve already rolled that number they skip their turn.  The first one to complete their picture is the winner.

The other dice game that my students play with their conversational heart is they simply use it as a marker, roll the dice, and move their heart that many squares as they go around the game board.

Take time for a little fun...

Something else you may enjoy that I discovered while doing research, was a candy quiz.  I scored rather high (100%) so I’m not sure if it’s because I love candy, am good at taking quizzes or a trivia junky.  But it was fun, and you may learn something new.  Click on the link for a sweet trip.

Conversational Crafts:

• If you’re looking for something to do with the hearts you may want to try one of these projects:
• Ahead of time hot-glue 4 Popsicle sticks together to make a small frame that will hold a 4 x 6 photo.  The week before, take a picture of each student holding a pink heart that says “I love you.” written in red so that it looks like a conversation heart.
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• Glue the photo to the back of the frame.  Drizzle Elmer’s glue on each Popsicle stick and have students put 3-5 conversation hearts on each stick.  Set aside to dry.  I wait ‘til after Valentine’s Day and buy these at 75% off to use the following year.  Wrap the frames in red or pink tissue paper and have students take home as a Valentine gift for parents.
• Cut ribbon into 12-inch lengths.  Give each child a thick glue dot and 2 conversation hearts. Students put a glue dot on each end of the ribbon and firmly press their candy hearts on top of the dots.  This becomes a bookmark.  I buy my ribbon at 75% off after Christmas.
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• Another bookmark you can make is to have the children write something on a Popsicle stick and then have them glue a candy heart on one end.
• Give each student 3 hearts and 3 green Popsicle sticks.  Have them glue the hearts to the center of a pastel or red flower that has been punched from a paper punch.  Glue the flowers to the green Popsicle stick stems.  You can also glue leaves half way up.  Fill small terra cotta pots or Dixie Cups with dirt and insert flowers.  Give to moms for Valentines Day.  If you want to skip the dirt step, make slits in the bottom of the Dixie cups and insert the “flowers”.
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• I hot glue the candy hearts on flat thumbtacks and use them on my bulletin board for February.
• If your child has to make a Valentine “mailbox” for school, this is an inexpensive thing to glue on it after you’ve helped them wrap the box with some cool metallic hot pink wrapping paper.
• Conversation hearts make a nice “collection” for 100 Day too!

Whatever heart you’re trying to converse with this month, I hope it's beating with happiness!