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