Category — Math Activities

Sorting activities are great to help children build math skills. As they create patterns, organize items in sets and examine similarities and differences in items, they build a foundation for a better understanding of math. This is a fun and inexpensive sorting activity for your grandchildren to do when they come to visit. It’s really great for all ages. Sometimes my adult children get involved. I put all kinds of interesting items in my jar. There are buttons, plastic money, beads, plastic animals, rocks, marbles, the list is endless! I dump the jar onto the table then the children begin organizing their favorite items. I like to talk to them about what they chose and why, what other items match what they already have. They usually come up with answers that I would have never had thought of. To keep things from falling on the floor, dump the items into a large box lid. You could use an egg carton for sorting the items.

This is a fun activity that combines addition, multiplication & division skills. The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Lord & Janet Burroway is a tall tale about a village afflicted by a plague of wasps. They try many ways to get rid of them but they are unsuccessful. Finally, someone has the idea to make a giant jam sandwich. The sandwich is so giant it covers the entire park! The jam attracts the wasps and they quickly cover it with the top slice of bread and haul it away. Your grandchildren can make their own jam or peanut butter sandwich and use raisins for the wasps. They can see how many wasps (raisins) they can catch on one slice of bread. If you don’t want to use real bread, you can trace a slice of bread on paper and use paper clips for the wasps.
You can ask questions such as:
How many wasps can you catch with 2, 3 or 4 sandwiches?
How many sandwiches would it take to catch 100 wasps?
What if the wasps were twice as big, how many could you catch?

Download Rock Around the Clock
Getting Started:
1. You will need a set of cards for each player.
2. Each player places their cards face down in a circle like the numbers on a clock. The 12 is the only card
that faces up in the 12 o’clock position.
3. The remaining cards become the “draw pile”.
How to Play:
The goal of the game it to be the first player to turn over all the cards in their clock. You do this by taking turns drawing for the draw pile and placing the card in the correct position. The card you replace goes to the bottom of the “draw pile”. If you draw a card that is already in the correct position, you skip your turn.

Download Count Down to Christmas Chain
You’ll need: Scissors & glue
To assemble:
*Use colored paper or paper with Christmas designs to print the links.
*Cut out each of the links and glue together in a chain (the links are numbered 1-24 because there is a math problem that corralates to the calendar day. Be sure to attach them in order).
*Begin on December 1st cutting off link number 1 and do the math problem.
*Continue removing a link each day and doing the math problem. When there are no links on the chain left, the next day will be Christmas.

Download the Favorite Food Bar Graph The bar graph activity will be fun for Thanksgiving or any other time during the month.

Download the Witches Brew
This is a fun activity using measurement. Download your free copy and figure out the spooky ingredients.