Today's Classroom Activities :

Math For All Ages

Odds & Evens
Math Place a "town mat" or "road mat" on the floor. Use houses from toy train villages or make houses out of small boxes for the children to line up along the streets. Help them make house numbers on little flags or sticky paper labels to put on the roofs. Have all even-numbered houses on one side of the street, all odd-numbered on the other. Go for a class walk around the neighborhood to observe "real" building numbers. Only the last digit needs to be read for a child to determine if it is odd or even.

Moveable Math
Math Provide each child with a chenille stick, large beads with center holes and a work mat of some kind. Give each child a math sheet with enough room under the problem to place the chenille stick. Watch as students add and subtract the correct beads. Use these also to introduce multiplication at the concrete level.

Clubhouse Math
Math Ask a local store to donate a large freezer or refrigerator box to your class for a clubhouse. Plan the clubhouse and measure for doors, windows, curtains, floor coverings, etc. Design siding or choose exterior paint, making sure that all the plans are completed before beginning the project. What will it cost? How long will it take? When the project is completed, check your estimates. Were they close? Put bean bags or large floor pillows inside the clubhouse and hold a grand opening for your new "Readers' Clubhouse," complete with membership certificates and rotating schedules.

Congruent Creations
Math Place a sheet of white tissue paper on top of any picture or design. Trace the object with a pencil. Place the tissue paper on a clean sheet of poster board or drawing paper. Trace the pencil line with a heavy marker. Remove the tissue paper and see the congruent copy of the original. Use many colors of paint or pastels to fill in the objects and place them on a bulletin board. Make congruent creations of all sizes and shapes.

Pretty Percentages
Math When introducing percentages, pass out 100-square paper and two different colored pencils to each student. Play a game, perhaps a spelling bee or a math-facts game. For each correct answer, students fill in one square a particular color, doing the same with the other color for each incorrect answer. When the game is completed, ask each student to calculate his or her own percentage by counting the number of squares of one color. The same project could be done at home using wins and losses on a video game.