Activities

Activity: Bake together!

Look at a set of measuring cups and measuring spoons. What do you notice? What do you wonder? What happens to the size of the cups as the fractions change?
How many 1/3 cups would it take to fill 1 cup? 2 cups?
What are some different ways you could get 1/2 cup of sugar if your 1/2 cup was missing?
What is the relationship between a tablespoon and a teaspoon?
Double, triple or halve the recipe.
How much would everyone get if you split the food equally among your family?

Activity: What Are the Coins?

Ask your child the following types of questions:

I have three coins in my pocket. They are worth 7 cents. What do I have? (a nickel and 2 pennies)
I have three coins in my pocket. They are worth 16 cents. What do I have? (a dime, a nickel, a penny)
I have three coins in my pocket. They are worth 11 cents. What do I have? (2 nickels and 1 penny)
I have three coins in my pockets. They are worth 30 cents. What do I have? (3 dimes)
I have six coins in my pocket. They are worth 30 cents. What could I have? (1 quarter and 5 pennies or 6 nickels). This problem has more than one answer. It is challenging for children to experience problems like this.
I have coins in my pocket, which have a value of 11 cents. How many coins could I have?

You get the idea! Give your child a few coins to figure out the answers.

Source: http://www.math.com/parents/articles/funmath.html

Activity: Esti-Mysteries

Esti-Mysteries help to build estimation number sense by providing clues to narrow down the possible answer to the image shown. Download the Esti-Mysteries and have fun! When you are done, create your own esti-mystery. I would love to see the results!

https://stevewyborney.com/2018/11/esti-mysteries-estimation-meets-math-mysteries/

https://stevewyborney.com/2019/09/51-esti-mysteries/

Activity: Math Art

Explore the math in various art forms and create your own. And please share with me! (I know Ms. Bradfield would love to see your creations as well!)

What Do We Do All Day? has an interesting collection of Math Art Projects for various age ranges. https://www.whatdowedoallday.com/math-art-projects-kids/
Search "Math Art" and be ready to be amazed!!!!
Further exploration
- Fractals: http://www.math.com/students/wonders/fractals.html
- Spirograph: https://www.sciencekiddo.com/spirograph-math/ ~ https://nathanfriend.io/inspirograph/
- Tessellations: http://www.math.com/students/wonders/tessellations.html
- Origami: http://www.math.com/students/wonders/origami.html

Activity: International Math Salute

Can you figure out the International Math Salute.

*It's helpful to figure out how you want to end and work your way to that point. (Work backwards!)

Activity: Shape and Angle Hunt

Visit WOMI - Frames and print the frames. Cut out the interior shapes and go on a shape or angle hunt around your house! You can also draw and cut out your own shape frames. Take pictures of the object through the frame.

Source: https://sites.google.com/site/womiworldwide/frames

Activity: Take the Math Facts OUTSIDE!

Be creative! Practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division facts outside!

Write numbers that would be answers to your fact sets on the ground (scattered, in a circle, or in a hundreds chart). Have someone give a problem and run, jump, skip, etc., to the answer. Or throw a ball on the correct answer.
Spread math facts around outside. Someone calls an answer and you have to find the fact that matches. Make it more active by setting up an obstacle course between yourself and the math facts.
Put facts to practice inside a hopscotch board.
Make a pile of rocks, balls, sticks, etc. Have someone call out a math fact. Run down to the objects and collect the number of objects that matches the answer to the problem.

What other math can you do outside. Share your ideas with me so I can share them with the rest of the school. (And I would LOVE to see pictures of you practicing math facts outside!)

Activity: Scavenger Hunt

Can you find all items on the scavenger hunt? Let me know if you can find them all. (I might have a prize for anybody that completes one of the scavenger hunts and tells me what you found!)

Activity: LEGO Blindfold Challenge

Gather up some LEGOs and a blindfold. See what you can build using visualization and spatial reasoning. Challenge each other to build an animal, car, letter, or free build. Can others guess what you were trying to build?

Source: https://www.gamesforyoungminds.com/blog/2019/1/30/lego-blindfold-build-challenge?rq=lego

Activity: Freese Transformation 178

Color and cut out the shapes. Explore what happens when you rotate the shapes. See what other shapes you can make!

Source: https://www.mathhappens.org/take-and-make-freese-transformation-178/

Cut-out-and-Color-Freese-178.pdf

Activity: Board Games

Play a board game with your family. Think about and discuss the math you are using to play the game.

Activity: Hundreds Chart Optical Art

This is a task that combines art, mathematics and design. Students are asked to see and design optical illusions, think about the mathematics inside them and pose mathematical questions for their friends.

Task Instructions

Optical art consists of geometric shapes and patterns, and is often colored in black and white. Look at the three examples, do you see anything about the patterns that cause them to create an optical illusion?
Using the 100-square grid, create your own interesting pattern. Share your designs with a classmate and find out if they see an illusion when looking at your pattern.
Did you get any more ideas about the ways to create an optical illusion? Describe your mathematical thinking about ways to do that.
Can you see any patterns, fractions, or decimals in your artwork? Where are they?
Think of a mathematical question that you could ask about your artwork.
If someone else wanted to recreate your artwork, what directions would you give them?

Materials

One handout per student
Copies of a 100-square grid
Ruler
Colored pencils or markers

Extensions

It is interesting to think about what creates an illusion in optical art. Do optical illusions have certain mathematical properties? One idea would be for the whole class to display their designs and look together to see if certain designs create particular visual properties. If you want to extend this task into a bigger project Wikipedia has some interesting information about optical art. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematics_and_art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Op_art

Optical-Art-Task-1-1.pdf

Source: https://www.youcubed.org/tasks/optical-art-task/

Activity: Fold and Cut Theorem

Can you cut a square from the center of a piece of paper with just one straight cut? Spoiler: YES, you can. In this Numberphile video, Manchester-based mathematician Dr. Katie Steckles demonstrates an idea that dates back to 1721 in Japan: The Fold and Cut Theorem. It states that “any shape with straight sides can be cut from a single (idealized) sheet of paper by folding it flat and making a single straight complete cut.” Any polygon, just one snip.

Stars? Yes. Jackolanterns? Yes. All 26 letters of the alphabet? Dr. Steckles demonstrates that! Plus, be sure to check out these DIY printable examples at ErikDemaine.org/foldcut, and/or try making up a few on your own.

Source: https://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/fold-cut-theorem-cut-any-shape-from-only-one-cut

Activity: Hexaflexagons

Activity: Engineering Challenges

Try out the Dyson engineering challenges. These are designed to be done with materials found around the house.

Activity: One Dollar Words

Take a word and convert it to a series of numbers based on the letters. Add those numbers together. Can you find words that add to $1?

Questions to ask:

Who in our family has a name that is closest to one dollar?
Can you come up with a nonsense word that is a one dollar word? Once you do, let's come up with a definition for that word!
What other words have the same value as your name? Do those words describe you?
Here is a list of a bunch of one dollar words. Can you write a sentence using five of these words? How many can you fit in a sentence that still makes sense?
Can you write a $1 sentence?

Source: https://www.gamesforyoungminds.com/blog/2018/6/3/1iwkovbzs440d0xrvulwenj22rwart?rq=dollar

Activity: Estimate the Age of a Tree

Measure the circumference of some trees and use the information in the following website to estimate the age of the trees.

Source: https://theforestguild.com/estimating-the-age-of-trees/?fbclid=IwAR3tQZoCX6SQivH5inGP5sq8DcuQJt_RO8qlp_PnZK66A7hQum4Ok8wemHc

Activity: Fractals

Fractals are patterns that repeat indefinitely as you zoom in on them.

Explore activities available at Fractal Foundation.

Source: https://fractalfoundation.org/resources/fractivities/

Activity: Attribute Train

Gather up a variety of objects. Pick one object to be the locomotive. Place another object after that shares an attribute with the previous object. The attribute can be anything that is reasonable. Have students explain their reasoning as they add more and more objects.

Source: https://www.gamesforyoungminds.com/blog/2018/9/8/attribute-train-turn-your-junk-drawer-into-a-math-game

Activity: Greg Tang Spring Math Challenge

Go to https://gregtangmath.com/spring and download the math challenge board for your grade level. All games and books can be accessed from Greg Tang's website.

When you finish the game board, your parents can enter you to win a prize from Greg Tang!

Source: https://gregtangmath.com/spring

Activity: Tangrams

https://www.tangram-channel.com/

Tangrams are seven shapes that are cut from a square. They can be used to make different shapes.

Explore the history of tangrams in Chinese culture. Then explore the different challenges. What shapes can you make?

Source: https://www.tangram-channel.com/

https://www.deltastate.edu/include/Mathematics/2011Young5day.pdf

Activity: Breakout Broadcast

See if you can put the broadcast schedule back together in the digital Breakout Broadcast challenge.

Source: https://bit.ly/3eKeEH4

Activity: Graphing a Minute

Pick some activities that you think you can do for 1 minute. Predict how many you can do, then time yourself doing that activity (jumping jacks, swinging, steps, etc.) and count how many you do in one minute. Graph your results for the various activities. What questions could you answer with your graph?

You can make a graph online at Illuminations - https://www.nctm.org/Classroom-Resources/Illuminations/Interactives/Data-Grapher/

Activity: Volume Sense

Find different containers and predict which would hold more water. Use the containers to pour water from one container to another. What do you notice? What do you wonder?

Use scoops of beans to fill the containers. Predict how many scoops it will take to fill the container. Analyze your predictions when its about half way through filling.

Source: Teaching Numeracy. Margie Pearse, K.M. Walton. Corwin, 2011.

Activity: Tower of Hanoi

Move all of the rings to the third peg. However, you can only move one ring at a time and you can only put a smaller ring on top of a larger ring.

You can play online on at Math Playground.

You can also make your own tower by cutting out different sized circles.

Activities & Games: Box Cars and One-Eyed Jacks

Explore the games and activities at Box Cars and One-Eyed Jacks.

Source: https://www.boxcarsandoneeyedjacks.com/covid-19-resource-page/

Activities: Math Fitness

Explore the games and activities at Math Curious for Indoor and Outdoor Math Fitness.

https://mathcurious.com/2020/04/28/math-fitness-1/

https://mathcurious.com/2020/05/02/math-fitness-2/

Report abuse