Math Opposites

Activity Overview

Identifying relationships between words helps to increase student lexicon – the academic vocabulary we use across subject areas. Gaining access to many future math concepts requires a deep understanding of the related vocabulary, and a significant amount of this language is common and applicable to literacy and the continuing development of our vestibular and proprioceptive systems. Examining antonyms with children will help them to contextualize these mathematical concepts in familiar real-world scenarios and give them a growing vocabulary of their bodies in space.

What You Need

• Math Opposites cards

• Scissors

• Colored pencils, crayons, or markers

Steps

1. Print out the Math Opposites cards and cut them out individually. Students may color them in if they like.

2. Spend some time looking at and identifying each image with the student. Read the words out loud and use guiding questions to prompt a conversation around how the images and concepts are related to each other (they are the opposite).

3. Use the cards to play a matching game by placing them face down and flipping over two at a time. Alternatively, split the pairs in half, lay out half the set face up, put the other half in a stack and flip one over at a time to find its mate.

Guiding Questions

• What does opposite mean?

• What is the same about each pair?

• What is different about each pair?

• What other opposites do you know?

• What other things are ___ (big or small, straight or round, long or short)?

• What would have to change in order for one image to be classified as the opposite description? When could a mouse be the bigger object (next to an ant)? Could a piece of cake also be considered a “whole” (as a serving)? Could the finished cookies also represent a “before”– what would the after look like (eaten!)?

Extensions

• Use the blank Math Opposites cards to create your own examples of antonyms or opposites that relate to mathematical language (how we measure or calculate).

• Come up with other examples of things from your home, in your life, or in your neighborhood that represent each antonym.

• Connect the student’s body to the vocabulary by acting out the antonym pairs.