Winter Math Activities

So, your children are home for a couple of weeks over the holidays.  What to do when playing with new toys becomes old?  Well, do not panic.  Here are some great winter math activities to keep the kids occupied, busy, having fun and working with mathematics too!  You will find ideas involving snowflakes, penguins, snowmen, winter book lists, data analysis, gingerbread math, candy graphing, and holiday problem solving.  Check it out!

WINTER MATH ACTIVITIES

Tips for Keepin' up on Math Skills over Winter Break

This will be the last posting before our children are off for winter break.  I found a great resource to help you support your children in math!  You can help your children sharpen their math skills through games and everyday activities such as shopping, cooking, and household tasks.  Talk about math during shopping (ie: figuring sales tax; counting money; determining change due), or cooking (ie: fractions; measuring; doubling recipes) and doing things around the house (ie: measuring furniture or rooms).

This first resource is put together by NCTM (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics).  Check out these great ideas and your children will have fun, as well as keep their math skills going over the holiday.

Keepin' up on Math Skills over Winter Break
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Thanks to Miami-Dade for posting Winter Break Packets (for both mathematics and reading/language arts).  Great ideas to keep your child's skills up!!!

Miami-Dade Winter Break Packets

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

SCHOOL RESUMES ON MONDAY, JANUARY 7, 2013

Holiday Lights

As our winter holiday approaches, I went in search of some seasonal fun for our kiddos, while still practicing our math skills.

Here is one resource for your children.  This will help reinforce addition, subtraction, multiplication or division fluency.  Perfect for grades one through five.

Christmas Lights Holiday Math Fact Fun

Mental Math - Adding Nine!

If a child is fluent adding ten, then adding 9 makes sense!  You just make your nine into a friendly ten, add, then take one away.

9 + 5 = ___
10 + 5 = 15, take one away!
15 - 1 = 14
The answer is 14!

Practice this with lots of examples and soon your child will have a good understanding of adding nine.

9's MATH FACTS VIDEO

Mental Math - Commutative Property!

Another mental math strategy is the commutative property.  The answer is the same when you add two numbers, the order of the numbers does not matter...

7 + 2 = 2 + 7

BRAIN POP VIDEO - COMMUTATIVE PROPERTY

USING THE COMMUTATIVE PROPERTY TO MAKE MATH EASIER

Holiday Cookies and Bar Model Example

Suzanne went to a holiday cookie party.  She made 300 cookies.  She took 3/4 of them to the party, and gave 1/3 of the remainder to her neighbor.  How many cookies did she have left?

Try to use bar models to solve the problem...  Once you are done, check out my strategy.

                                                              

Remember, this strategy enables our younger students to understand algebraic concepts.  We begin this work with bar modeling in second grade.

Holiday Sale Shopping Math!

Well, Black Friday may be over, but retail stores are still advertising sales on holiday items.  What kind of math do adults use as they head for Fred Meyers or Walmart?  They mentally calculate prices!  What is 40% off that $125 cashmere sweater?  What is the price of the new video game your child is asking for?  You have a coupon advertising 15% off if you spend $100, so what would the total price be?

How can you involve your child in this great real life math?  Well, depending on your child’s age, you absolutely can have them help.  Your child can do the calculations (if old enough)…  They can add the dollar amount you are spending while at the store.  They can make a wish list, and cost it out – finding the price of the items they are hoping for, and adding to find the total price.  If your child is at the age level of rounding and calculating, this too is the perfect skill for this sale shopping math experience.

What could be more realistic than holiday shopping sale mental math? 

Happy holiday shopping!

Happy Thanksgiving!

It is the big day - the day for cooking a turkey and various side dishes...  It is also a time for family, friends and memory building.  Take this wonderful day of thanks to add math to your cooking and get the kids to help!

Here are a few tips:

1. Read the recipes together.  Talk about those fractional parts, and have your child use the appropriate measuring cups or spoons.
2. Think about quantity...  do you need to double a recipe?  Have your child help and talk through how you do it.
3. Set the table.  This is always a great task for little ones to do or help with.  It involves counting, and following a pattern.
4. Cooking Time.  Just thinking through cooking time is a great math task.  Have your child set the timer.  Talk about how long something needs to cook.  When you are working on the turkey, how many minutes per pound does it need to bake?  How much does the turkey weigh?  Have your child help with cooking time.

Take time to enjoy the day!  Don't forget that photo opp to add to your photo album - your children helping in the kitchen.  Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Mental Math - Adding Ten!

Adding ten means jumping up ten.  If a child has a basic understanding of place value, it is easy for them to know the ones digit stays the same, but the ten’s digit increases by one.  It is essential for children to have this basic understanding of adding ten.  Tens are friendly and easy to work with.  So, when helping your child - practice jumping up ten!

10 + 6 = 16
72 + 10 = 82
135 + 10 = 145

Tools to help your child with this strategy...

Number Line

100's Chart