Featured Topic: Fall Math Activities 2007
These activities were designed to introduce or reinforce important math concepts and skills using seasonal themes. This is a natural fit for elementary classrooms where teachers and students celebrate the various holidays with literature and art projects. These activities allow teachers to also incorporate math activities that develop and support important mathematical concepts and skills.
The Fall 2007 collection includes Bat and Spider Activities, Math-Literature Connections with math activities to complement the books, a new coordinate graphing game, new fall problem solving tasks and a list of links to additional fall activities on the internet.
- Check out the new Mathwire collection of Fall 2007 Math Activities.
Enter your email address below to receive notifications when new content is added to Mathwire.
NOTICE: If you have already subscribed to the Mathwire.com Updates but have not been receiving any notices, this may be due to your school's e-mail system that does not allow these mailings to be delivered. Please feel free to resubscribe using a different e-mail account rather than your school account.
Recent Additions to Mathwire.com
Added on September 28, 2007: Math Activity Themes Series
The Math Activity Theme Series is designed to collect all Mathwire.com activities on one page for easy reference by teachers using a themed approach. It is also an easy reference tool for teachers who are looking for seasonal games, problem solving tasks, math-literature connections, or other math activities to add to math centers, Do Nows, weekly problem solving challenges, etc. to capture student fascination with seasonal topics.
The Math Activity Theme Series currently includes Bat Math and Spider Math, just in time for October and Halloween math activities. Each page is a collection of current Mathwire.com activities but some new activities were developed for each collection, so be sure to check each page carefully for both new and old themed activities.
This themed series is currently in development. Look for new themes to be added over the coming months.
Check out the new Mathwire.com Math Activity Theme Series.
Added on September 22, 2007: Jan Brett's Numbers
-
Jan Brett's Number Tracers for practicing numeral writing
- Jan Brett's Flash Card Numbers 0-20, 4 numbers to a page
- Jan Brett's Numbers, full page size
- Jan Brett's Addition Flash Cards
- See more Jan Brett's Numbers
Added on September 20, 2007: Counting & Addition Mats
Seasonal mats are a welcome addition to the classroom math center. Teachers may use these in a number of ways to help students master math skills:
- Counting: student rolls a die or selects a card, and places that many feathers on one turkey. The student rolls the die again and places that many feathers on the other turkey. The student should then count the total feathers and either write or select a
number card to express the total.
- Write Number Sentences: the student follows the same procedure as above, except that he/she writes a number sentence to describe the results of the dice rolls. See Leaf Mat for an example of a prompted number sentence mat and recording sheet. Insert both in sheet protectors and provide dry erase markers for students to use.
- Quick Counting Game: student pairs each follow the procedure for rolling the die, placing that many feathers on the first turkey, etc., writing a number sentence or selecting a number card. The student with the larger number wins the game. Or, use a More-Less Spinner to add more suspense to the win. After students finding their totals, they spin the More-Less Spinner to determine who wins the round, adding practice of another math skill to the quick game.
- New Seasonal Mats:
- Turkey Mat and Feathers, as pictured at left
- Pumpkin Mat
- Crazy Spider Mat: students use small pipe cleaner legs to create crazy spiders. First die roll tells student how many legs to add to one side of the spider. The second die roll tells students how many legs to add to the other side of the spider. How many legs does his/her spider have in all? If it's not 4 on each side, then the student has created a Crazy Spider.
-
- Other Seasonal Mats:
Added on September 20, 2007: Shari Sloane's Website
Shari is a kindergarten teacher and consultant. Her site is a wealth of ideas, pictures and activities for primary teachers. Be sure to check these math resources by selecting them in the left navigation column:
- Numeral Writing for many multi-sensory options
- Math Class Books for books and suggested math activities
- Math for descriptions of activities and samples of student work
- Daily Calendar for pictures of her classroom and descriptions of how students do the routines
- Calendar Book describes individual student books
- Graphing is full of great suggestions and pictures
- Glyphs is the most outstanding resource on this topic!!
- New Jack Hartmann Big Books complement the Jack Hartmann math songs [See Math Music Links for more information on Jack Hartmann math CDs.]
Added on September 19, 2007: Math Music
Many students learn through music. Witness the number of adults who easily sing the ABC song with their own children. Composers are beginning to develop math-specific songs to help students learn math concepts and skills. Whether teachers use a song to introduce or reinforce a concept, or as a regular part of calendar time, students are bound to benefit from the multi-sensory experience.
Check out the new Mathwire page: Math Music for songs, lyrics, and links to CDs of Math songs.
Added on September 18, 2007: Mathematics Activities and Games for Early Years
Games and activities on this Manitoba education Mathematics resource site are available for downloading as Word or pdf documents. These include activities and games for the classroom and for home use. There are many favorites but also some new twists on primary games. For example, check out Squeeze Play and Good Riddance in the Home section to add to your classroom collection.
- Check out Squeeze Play, a game using regular playing cards, which reinforces number sequence.
- Take a look at Good Riddance Game which provides lots of addition facts practice.
- View All Games and Activities available on this site.
Added on September 17, 2007: Online Calendar Math Ideas
There are great online resources for the classroom calendar routines. The following represent a sampling of some of the best. Bookmark these sites for future reference.
- Mrs. Meacham's Classroom Snapshots include pictures of calendar routines. She also includes downloadable files (Word or pdf) for student calendar folders. This is a terrific resource for primary teachers!
- Jan Brett Monthly Calendar Pocket Chart: site has pdf files to download to create special calendar components in true Jan Brett style.
- Holiday Calendar Squares from Preschool Printables include the major holidays.
- Themed Numbered Calendar Squares from Preschool Printables include apples, dinosaurs, backpacks, stars, etc.
- Holiday Calendar Number Squares from Preschool Printables include pumpkins, turkeys, hearts, etc.
- Seasonal Numbered Calendar Squares from Preschool Printables include snowflakes, leaves, pumpkins, butterflies, etc.
Added on September 16, 2007: Online Math Dictionaries
These online math dictionaries are great as resources for teachers, students and parents.
- Check out A Math Dictionary for Kids 2007. Simply click on any letter to bring up a list of math terms. Clicking on any of the terms brings up definitions with diagrams for better visual presentation.
- Harcourt's Multimedia Math Glossary is available online for students in Grades 1-8. First click on the appropriate grade, then select a letter to bring up the math terms in the glossary.
Mathwire Archives:
See Mathwire Archives for past issues of What's New on Mathwire.com and for past month's featured articles.