Looking for free but high quality solar eclipse math and science activities? Here are the best I have found from all over the Internet. For Elementary How Big Is the Sun? The Sun is the largest object in our solar ...
Earlier today I posted Black Friday Amazon deals for Math Games. This post is for Black Friday deals on math toys. My post Toys For Developing Mathematical Thinking tells you more about toys and math manipulatives I recommend for parents ...
Looking for great bargains on math games? Check out these Black Friday Math Games 2023 Amazon Deals! These are all math games I have previously recommended that are currently on sale. Another post is coming on deals on toys to ...
Looking for some free Thanksgiving math resources that practice solid computational and thinking skills in a fun and engaging way? Here are the ones I will be using. I have some for every grade pre K- 8th! Greg Tang Thanksgiving ...
Math Dice Junior is a simple and easy to learn addition and subtraction game for 2-4 players. A 12 sided dice is rolled along with five 6 sided dice. Players then use the 6 sided dice to reach the target ...
What are the best toys to develop mathematical thinking in your child? There are SO MANY educational toys available for purchase now, more than ever before. According to Fortune Business Insights, ” The global educational toy market market size was ...
Using games for math intervention is one of the best ways to motivate students and help them make fast progress. Intervention students typically lack confidence in their math skills, and see themselves as “bad at math.” They have had bad ...
Even Steven’s Odd Game was introduced to me by a friend who is a 3rd grade teacher. She commented on one of my Instagram game posts and asked if I had ever played it. I had heard of the Even ...
Here are some of the best 2022 Cyber Monday Amazon deals I could find for toys that develop mathematical thinking. Building Toys Magformers My favorite math toy (see this post) is on sale for $55.99 ( 44 percent off! ) ...
I mentioned in a previous post that I had three favorite sessions when I attended the Conference for the Advancement of Math Teaching this summer. Two were sessions I went in to the conference excited about (Kim Sutton of Creative ...
Math literacy using technology encourages student creativity and application of learning. I recently attended the Texas Computer Education Association’s technology education conference. While attending a session on student created literacy stations, I began to realize how many of the suggestions ...
While I designed this website to have many resources parents can use, here are some fantastic free math resources specifically for parents. Bedtime Math– Bedtime math can be just as much a fun part of your family’s nightly routine as ...
Race to the Treasure was a surprise random discovery for me. I had never heard of it before I ran across a perfect condition copy at a neighborhood garage sale. A particular young tutoring student of mine is still learning ...
The Absolute Zero card game is a good quick game for middle school students to practice adding positive and negative integers. Game play is very simple. There is a deck of number cards, with both positive (black) and negative (red) ...
Numberblocks is a BBC show currently available on Netflix. (Many of the 5 minute episodes also are on YouTube.) This show is a fantastic resource for teaching number sense in a very fun and creative way. I had heard about ...
Math in music and art is a fun and engaging topic for math enrichment, whether through a math club, a math camp, or just to incorporate into your regular instruction. One of my favorite teaching moments with a group of ...
One of the students I currently tutor individually needed help last week with decimal place value and money. We worked on the decimal place value using my ideas in this post (Place Value Yahtzee was a big hit!) However when ...
While I have many games made specifically for teaching math listed on this site, there are also lots of classic board games that can be used to develop math skills. They are beneficial just as they are but many also ...
The Make a Splash 120 chart game from Learning Resources is one of my and my students’ favorites for practicing kindergarten-2nd grade math standards. (I have seen older elementary students enjoy it also.) The concept is simple- it’s a giant ...
Free summer math camps pdf available! I just had a request from a member for suggestions for running summer math camp, so I put together a guide to what has worked for me in the past. It includes ideas for ...
One of my favorite math camp, math club, or enrichment topics for kids is exploring infinity, fractals, and tessellations. These topics aren’t part of the typical elementary and middle school math curriculum, but they build a deeper understanding of the ...
One of the best ways I have found to motivate young boys (and many girls) to learn math is through teaching math with their favorite superheroes. Here are some fun and engaging free ideas for super hero themed math for ...
As spring fever starts you might want to consider using baseball to teach math. There is no sport that is more a game of mathematics! “Properly played, baseball consisted of mathematics, geometry, art, philosophy, ballet, and carnival, all intertwined like the ...
Proof is a simple and effective card game for developing mathematical thinking. It builds mental math skills, number sense, and fluency. You can use it to practice multiplication, division, addition, subtraction, and square roots. It can easily be very appropriate ...
The Tiny Polka Dot card game is made by Math For Love. This is the same company that made my absolute favorite board game Prime Climb. Tiny Polka Dots was created for younger children, and is my top recommended “must ...
Are you looking for free resources and ideas to incorporate the Super Bowl into your math instruction? Here are some of the best I’ve found. Updated 1/24/24 to fix links! Measurement and Graphing Activities Use geometry and spatial skills to fold ...
Shut the Box is a simple and classic dice game that is simple to learn, fun to play, and develops fluency with addition facts. I recently learned that it was originally a traditional English pub game used for gambling! It ...
Over Under was one of those simple games that surprised me in how much it benefited my kids. It is a very simple game of estimating. All questions have a number for an answer. Players draw a card, ask a ...
Tessellation artist Makoto Nakamura has made several versions of these perpetual puzzles that are great for an independent student activity. They would be perfect for early finishers in a classroom, for a warm up to a small group or individual tutoring ...
Whenever I ask math teachers their favorite math games, the two that always seem to come up are Prime Climb for numbers and operations and Set for visual perception, critical thinking, and logic. The Set card game has won 35 ...
Sushi Go is a fast paced strategy card game made by Gamewright. I haven’t been disappointed in one of Gamewright’s games yet, and this was no exception. It is one of those great games (as most of Gamewright’s are) that ...
One of the most important tools that I use for math instruction at any elementary and even middle school level is the life sized number line. For more on uses of the number line in general in grades K-5 (including ...
Racko is a classic card game originally released in 1956 and still popular today. It is a strategy game that uses the math skill of comparing and ordering numbers. The game is easy to teach and learn, fun to play, ...
At this point if I run across any game by Gamewright at a used bookstore or garage sale I just buy it! None of their games have disappointed me yet, and the Granny Apples dice game was no exception. The ...
This book, which I ran across at the library, absolutely took me by surprise with the incredible quality of math activities for gifted/talented elementary and middle school students. Several of my GT students’ favorite activities we had already done were ...
Digi-Blocks Digi-Blocks are manipulatives which are an alternative to traditional base 10 blocks. They are used in the same way to model place value, but Digi-Blocks are based on a nested design, meaning that all of the blocks pack into ...
Food is always a fun motivator for students- here are some no prep STEM challenges you can do! All links are to free directions and recording sheets. Gumdrop Structure Challenge Challenge students to use 10 gumdrops and 20 toothpicks to ...
STEM can mean many different things. Sometimes when teachers or parents think of STEM they think of coding, robots, iPads, and lots of expensive technology. However, some of my students’ favorite activities of the year, the ones they learned the ...
As the school year comes to an end, many teachers and tutors are looking for fun and engaging, but still educational, projects that reinforce math skills. Here are some open ended creative math project options for the end of the ...
Money Bags is a board game from Learning Resources designed for kids to practice counting and exchanging coins. It is a relatively quick game to play, probably 10-15 minutes. The game is ideal for first/second graders (or older children struggling ...
One of the benefits of membership on this site is the ability to request a post on any math topic! I received a request for examples of math in the movies for kids. It was a lot of fun researching ...
Mancala is one of the oldest strategy games in the world, and may have its origins in ancient Egypt or Ethiopia. Variations are played across many cultures including South Asia, Western Africa, the Caribbean, and Eastern Europe. It was brought ...
Remember making angles with cardstock and brads to teach acute, obtuse and right angles? I did it with students just last year. Then I learned about AngLegs, adjustable angle manipulatives made from colored plastic that can snap together, extend and ...
This is a game variation I came up with spontaneously recently. I was at Half Price Books and saw this very cool set of Texas themed Uno cards that I just had to buy. We Texans love our state! Texas ...
According to domino.com, there are 13 distinct types of dominoes! I use several of these for math instruction. We play games, do hands on activities, read a great book, and even learn about amazing domino art. Also included in this ...
While there are many commercial math games that are worth buying, there are also quite a few good math card games you can play with a deck of standard playing cards. Here are some of my favorites for different concepts. ...
Not only is using Legos in math class a way to build spatial and proportional awareness and develop creativity, but many math concepts can be explicitly taught using Legos. Multiplication and Division With Legos Hands On Activity: building a 3D ...
We’ve all been there as a parent or teacher, when we have an unexpected 5 minutes to fill. We need a spontaneous no prep activity to keep kids engaged and also hopefully build their skills. Here are some 5 minute ...
If you are looking for a way for students to understand the importance of number sequences and patterning in the real world, the Fibonacci sequence is a natural way to accomplish this. While gifted and talented students can dive into ...
Izzi is a visual spatial puzzle from Think Fun that I ran across at a thrift store! Those finds are sometimes the best ones. It turned out to be a challenging favorite of some of my GT students. Because of ...
Fraction tiles, also called fraction bars or fraction strips, are the single most important manipulative you can have for teaching fractions. They are brightly colored plastic rectangles that represent a whole, halves, thirds, fourths, fifths, sixths, eighths, tenths, and twelfths. ...
The number balance is a math manipulative that I had never used or even seen for many years that is now one of my and my students’ favorites. It is very versatile in that all ages from preschoolers to middle ...
Here are some fun and engaging ways to incorporate March Madness into your math instruction. Class Tournament I have seen two ways to do this. In one, students compete individually against a new partner every day or two and advance ...
While many manipulatives I write about have not been used before by most of my students, traditional pattern blocks are pretty ubiquitous in preschool and early elementary classrooms. However, many teachers don’t know about the pattern block variations and additions ...