1. String Art: Remember when we did this fun craft in school. The wonderful thing about string art is that it's fun. Children learn patterns, measuring, hand eye coordination and memory.
- Patterns are a large part of math. String art allows children to see another form of how patterns work. The end result can be exciting for them.
- Memory because they have to remember where they left off to keep the pattern going.
- Measuring is used to space out the nails. Hand eye coordination with keeping the string tight and tying simple knots.
- Here is a string art pattern for a boat with a link on the pattern to get more free ones.
2. Toilet paper Shopping: This is my idea because my kids love to play "Let's go Shopping". They love to set up shop in our family room and spend hours buying items from the house. It's the set up that is time consuming. One day I decided to use a roll of toilet paper. How it works is like this:
Get a roll of toilet paper and rip about 20 squares off. I have 2 children so this gives them 10 each. With a marker put money amounts on each square. For my grade 1 and grade 2 kids I start at .15 cents and write random amounts up to $3.25 on the rest of the squares.
Then put a pile of change in the centre of the table and let the kids pick one square at a time and put the correct amount on the piece of toilet paper. When they are done you check to see if they have the correct amount. Praise them and then start level two. In Level two they have to place the least amount of change on the piece in order for you (the store clerk) to accept the money. This will get them thinking about exchanging 2 nickles for a dime etc.
3. Add it, Subtract it, speed: Wow I never knew how competitive my kids were until I played this game with them. They even play it now with friends when they come over.
Take a deck of cards and remove the jacks, queens and kings. You are the dealer and the kids are playing against each other. They don't touch the cards at all. Start by telling them to add 1 to each card that is placed on the table. The first one that gets the correct answer, gets to keep the card. If they say the correct answer at the same time then the cards stays on the table and another card is place on top of it. The first one that gets the right answer gets to keep both cards or however many cards they said the answer at the same time.
Each new game can be played by adding a different number to the card on the table. This game works with addition, subtraction and multiplication. It is amazing how fast they start to remember and you will notice that when doing Math book work they are faster at it.
