With Sprouts, students draw a small set of dots and then connect those dots with lines. The first person who can’t make a connection loses.
Content Area: Math
Math Game: Heaps
Heaps is a lovely math-y strategy game that requires no more than paper and pencil to play.
Just How Much Pasta Could I Cook…
So, just how much pasta could I cook in an Olympic-sized pool?
So… which is longer: a Ray, a Line, or a Line Segment?
Let’s move beyond memorizing definitions and get kids grappling with the fascinating concept of infinity!
Use Universal Themes to Make Fractions Interesting
What if we used a universal theme to guide our study of fractions? These very big ideas get students thinking about fractions in a new way.
Using a Classic in Math!?
According to Costello, 7 × 13 = 28. In fact, watch him prove it…
Could we fit 1,000 kids on the playground? 10,000?
If your students can find the area of a square then, armed with Google Earth, they can also figure out how many students you could pack into your school’s playground.
Fizz Buzz – A Divisibility Game
Here’s a quick to learn but difficult to master math game. Start with some basic divisibility rules, but then feel free to extend it to any math topic.
The Coloring Problem
How few colors can you use to fill in a map so that no neighboring regions are the same color?
Thinking Like Equivalent Fractions
Go across disciplines by asking students to write a story about fraction equivalence.
Calculating the Volume of Laptops
So once your students can calculate volume… what do you have them do next? In this math project, kids will look up historic laptops, calculate their volumes, and note how technology has changed over time.
Fill ‘er up with Clam Chowder!
Sure gasoline seems expensive. Until you try to fill your car up with other liquids!
Making Awful Graphs
Sometimes we can learn a lot by doing something the wrong way. Here are six ways your students can purposefully design awful, misleading graphs.
Creating A New Mathematical Operation
Do your students realize that addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are all examples of the same idea: an operation? And that it’s quite possible to create a brand new operation? Let’s do it!
The Surprises Within a Triangle’s Angles
Discovering what is interesting and unexpected about a triangle’s angles. What twists have I unintentionally spoiled for my students over the years?
Make A *Better* Calendar!
The calendar is a source of fantastic factoring problems with many social studies add-ons. Why 12 months? Why 30 (or 31 or 28) days? Why are weeks 7 days long? Why don’t they fit into the months (or the year!)? Why did we do this to ourselves!?
Differentiate Math: Getting Started
Working with a student who is bored in math? Quickly finishing lessons? Needs something more? Here are three ways you can get started differentiating in math.
Depth and Complexity: Ethics… In Math!?
The Ethics prompt of depth and complexity fits so easily into the humanities… but what about ethics in math?!
What if you lived in Vegas but worked in San Francisco?
Is it possible to save money by commuting to San Francisco from Las Vegas?
Prime Number Explorations
Students learn about prime numbers early in their careers, but the true, quirky nature of these numbers isn’t really explored unless kids go on to become math majors. Here are three fun prime explorations suitable for even young students.
Encourage Curiosity With Calculators
It’s easy to fall in love with chasing the newest technology to use in the classroom. But sometimes, the perfect tool is a plain old calculator. We’ll be using this tool to develop curiosity about math.
Exploring Palindromes in ELA and Math
Palindromes are one of those fun ideas that some gifted kids just latch onto. We’ll check out palindromic words, phrases, and even numbers in this article.
A Millionaire By Doubling Pennies
How long will it take to get a million dollars if you start with a penny and double it?
Olympic Medal Math Project
In the paper, I read about Norway’s dominance of the Winter Olympics, despite being a tiny country. I love this juxtaposition of unexpected data! Let’s turn it into a math project. Here are some questions I thought of…
Math Project: Shrinking Airline Seats
What kind of math project could you build based on the shrinking dimensions of seats on the Boeing 777?