Here’s a super fun addition to a Family Math Night event: A scavenger hunt! As participants enter the room they are handed one of two “game boards”…the K-2 version or the 3-5 version. The K-2 version is a little easier and includes pictures. In addition, it’s played like bingo but with a scavenger hunt twist. Kids and their parents explore math in the environment by finding and crossing off items on their bingo board. Five-in-a-row wins. For a challenge (and…
I’ve been wanting to try out an idea I had for our Family Math Night events and, since we were trying out our newest kit, Gellin’ with Geometry, it was the perfect opportunity. My idea was to have a project that all the participants contributed to so that at the end of the event, we would have one big something to share. In keeping with the geometry theme, I decided to include a station where participants could made one honeycomb…
One of the best ways to engage young children in math is to make it hands-on. Here are three hands-on tools that can give kindergartners opportunities to do some great mathematical thinking in the context of…them. Bathroom Scale: The bathroom scale is a fun math “tool” to have in the house because it gives kids immediate feedback and, the best part is, it’s all about them! Unlike a lot of adults who may not like standing on a bathroom scale,…
Mathematical properties are actually quite useful when it comes to making sense of math. For example, the commutative property of addition helps make adding numbers a little easier. If we know that the order the numbers are added does not matter, then in the problem 2 + 9, adding the 2 onto the 9 is easier and more efficient than adding the 9 onto the 2. The Common Core State Standards in Mathematics requires all third grade students to know…
We’re surrounded by line segments. These line segments create parallel and perpendicular lines, and acute, obtuse and right angles. Looking for them in our environment is a great way to reinforce them. Ask your kids: Who can find a set of parallel lines? …perpendicular lines? …an acute angle? Pretty soon, they’ll be seeing nothing but lines and angles in the tiles on the floor, the branches of the trees, the way an ice hockey puck hits the wall… For older…