Fun Summer Math Activity
Here’s a fun activity you can send home with your families to do over the summer that will keep math alive – a math scavenger hunt. I’ve done it many times at our local Family Math Night events and it’s a HUGE hit.
When we do this at our events, students receive the scavenger hunt activity sheet and a pencil and, working with their parent/caregiver they go on a hunt for math items. This is a great way for students to see that math is everywhere in their environment. As they find items, they cross them off their sheet. At our events, five-in-a-row earns them a trip to the prize table.
I’ve included photos below of the activity done at a recent Family Math Night event. But, as mentioned above, it would be a fabulous activity to send home with families to do over the summer. So I’ve included the PDFs for you below. There are two versions: K-2 and 3-5.
Note: To keep it simple, at my events everyone gets the K-2 version because the 3-5 version takes longer and I want to make sure students get around to the math stations.
To extend the activity at home, kids can design their own scavenger hunt activity sheet. This is a great way to reinforce math concepts and definitions. So I’ve also included a blank activity sheet modeled after the K-2 version. Parents can work with their child to find and write in math-y items and then – super fun – they share it with another family member or friend who gets to go on a math scavenger hunt.
This photo shows what our prize table looked like. I had one of my station facilitators in charge of this station. As students arrived with their activity sheets, the facilitator confirmed they had crossed off five-in-a-row then she let them choose a prize. Kids LOVED this!
As the photo shows, we included a lot of fun inexpensive party favor type items. But you could also give students an extra guess at the estimation table or an extra raffle ticket if you are doing a raffle.
Not only is the scavenger hunt fun to do at home or at a Family Math Night event, but it can also be done in the classroom. The younger students, however, will need some help. This is the perfect time for a buddy class of older students or parent volunteers to come work with the littles!