Math is all around you.
Connecting math concepts to everyday conversations, events, and activities is a fun way to enhance mathematical learning. The following activities range in difficulty and many are open-ended so they can be made easier or more difficult to suit a variety of levels and ages. The goal is for students to have fun while thinking and communicating mathematical ideas in their own world.
Around the House
How many doors are in the house? windows? steps?
If you needed 2 paper towels to clean each window, how many would you need in all? (1 1/2 paper towels?)
How many steps does it take to get to the mailbox? to walk around the house? to get from the kitchen to the bedroom?
Loose change: What coins do you have? How many of each? How much in all?
Measure a room. What is its perimeter? area?
Kitchen
Cereal/rice/food boxes: order them shortest to tallest, lightest to heaviest; measure height/width of boxes; categorize by color/size/shape
Scavenger Hunt of kitchen items: circles, spheres, squares, cubes, rectangles, rectangular prisms
Recipes: count number of ingredients; measure items; play/compare with measuring cups; look at recipe books and find as many numbers and fractions as you can; How would you double or half the ingredients for a recipe?
Set the kitchen timer for 15 minutes. What time will the timer go off?
Check out this PBS Webpage for more ideas: Around the Kitchen Table: Finding Math in Everyday Places
Dining Room
Set the table. How many forks are needed? How many utensils in all? What if 4 more people were invited?
What shape is the table? plates? glasses?
How many tines are on your fork? How many are there on 2 forks? 3 forks? 4 forks? etc.
Measure the table. How many spoons-long is the table? forks-long? inches-long?
Family
Write the names of each member of our family and the years they were born. How old is each person? Put them in order from youngest to oldest. How old will each person be in 5 years?
Compare heights of family members.
Measure the length of a room or hallway by walking heel-to-toe. Have another family member do the same thing. Where the measurements the same? Why or why not?
Look at the daily mail. How many items? stamps? usual delivery time? Compare size and shapes of envelopes. Allow students to look at certain bills and discuss amounts of monthly bills/budgets.
Take every opportunity at stores/gas stations/ dry cleaners/ restaurants to create simple math connections!
Restaurants
Menus are great ways to make math connections!
What items are less than/greater than $5? $10?
Compare prices of a few items. Put then in order from least to greatest.
What combination of bills/coins could be used to pay the bill? the tip?
Budget: What items could be bought for $___.00? How much would be left over?
Supermarket
Choose two fruits. Which one do you think weighs more? Use the produce department scale to find out.
Compare the prices of items in your cart: most expensive? least expensive? less than $5? more than $5?
Count items in the grocery cart.
Look at expiration dates. Which one should you buy?
Look at the paper supermarket advertisements. Create a shopping list to stay within a given budget.
Look at the change you get back from the cashier. What coins do you have? How many of each? How much? What is another combination of coins that equals the same value?
Recycling bottles: Let students count how many bottles are being returned and be in charge of collecting the slip/money. Students can be in charge of the recycling effort at your house and can keep track of the money returned.
Beach/Yard/Neighborhood/Vacation
Pick up rocks/shells. Build different size arrays and explain your thinking.
Look at the high tide/low tide times in the paper or online. Discuss what would be a good time to go to the beach.
Count how many American flags you see. How many total stars would that be?
Build a sandcastle or fort. How many pails of sand were needed? If you want to build a fence around it, how could you figure out the perimeter?
Plants/Garden: How many plants are there? How many tomatoes were picked each week? How much has each plant grown?
Weather: Keep track of the daily high/low temperatures; watch the weather on tv each night for numbers and questions.
Car Rides
Look at the numbers on a license plate and play number games. (how many even numbers? sum of the numbers? product of 2 of the numbers)
Count how many types of cars you see. (trucks vs cars; colors of cars) If each car had 2 people inside, how many people are there?
Number hunts: exit numbers, mile markers, license plates, bumper stickers, street signs, building signs, mailboxes
Odometer Mileage: Check mileage before and after a trip. How far did you go? How could you figure out the mileage for one way?
Sports
Create a chart or infographic for your favorite team/athletes: wins/losses; scores; number of homeruns/hits/goals
Look up the years that your favorite athletes were born. Figure out the age of each person. What the differences in ages?
Look up the uniform numbers of your favorite athletes. Count to that number. Start at that number and count up 15 more. Which uniform number is largest? smallest? even? divisible by 2? closest to 40?
Create a personal sports goal. Make a chart or calendar to record how many minutes you run/bike/swim/exercise each day. What is the total each week?
Sporting Events: Going mini-golfing? Have the student in charge of the score card. Watching a ballgame? Keep track of players/scores/stats.
Look at a team's schedule. Create a calendar that says the date and time for each game. Away game? Find that city on a map and figure out how many miles away it is.