Are you looking for free New Years Math Activities to come back from holiday break and blast off the new school semester? I’ve got you covered with my favorites from all over the Internet. As usual, I don’t just share my own ideas but the best ones I find from other people! Updated for 2026!
New Year Puzzles from Math=Love
Math=Love is my favorite resource for math puzzles that are challenging in a fun way. Help your students ease back into the school year after winter break with this collection of New Year’s math activities. There is a variety of hands on, logic, numbers, and shape puzzles.
These puzzles and activities were originally created to use with high school math students, but most of them would be appropriate for the upper elementary or middle school math classroom as well.
The 2026 year game from NCTM
This game, adaptable for all levels 3rd-12th grade, challenges students to use the digits in the year 2026, any of the 4 operations, exponents, square roots, factorials and grouping symbols to write expressions for all counting numbers 1-100.
Rules, printable, recording sheets, and printable manipulative digits and symbols are available for free here.
Tang Math New Year Challenge
Game boards for grades kindergarten-6th challenge students to complete Greg Tang Math activities, math puzzles and games. Both digital and print versions are available, and you can also download certificates of completion. Find all the resources here.
New Year’s Party Math Activity
This free download for 3rd-5th grade is from Teaching With a Mountain View, who consistently makes high quality products. In this differentiated activity, your students have the option to practice their addition and subtraction skills or ALL operations skills. Once they’ve completed their math tasks, they follow the directions (which allow for creativity) to create a unique New Year’s Party Scene! Find the link to download here.
New Year “Matholution” Pennants
Like New Years resolutions, but for math. Have your students use this free digital or printable resource from Scaffolded Math and Science to create their math goals and decorate their pennants. Get it free on TPT here. I will be using these with my classroom students next week!
