SamizdatMath

Think about it: the average American eats over 40 slices of pizza a year; if you live to be 80, and assuming you start at around 5 years old, this is 75 years of pizza x 40 slices per year, or 3,000 slices in your lifetime! Since this delicious food is such an important part of our life, doesn't it make sense that we understand everything there is about the economics of buying pizza? This is a series of activities that examines the economics of pizza in several different ways. First, it shows

Greetings, Phrens! This is an activity that takes 1 - 2 class sessions and teaches your young students (grades 2 - 5) something that is less scary than human reproduction or racial discrimination: negative numbers! Seriously, if you aren't introducing your students to negative numbers at an early age, then you're not doing the best job you could at being a math teacher, and I'm not saying that to hurt your feelings, but because I want you to look good (and, as my hero, Vidal Sassoon said ove

Here's the deal: you want your students to practice rounding off numbers so you give them one of these rando "worksheets" with lots of numbers saying "round off to the nearest ten," "round off to the nearest hundred," yadda yadda yadda and they do it and forget about it and it's just a superficial way to approach this important topic. This takes the whole topic and reverses it, making it far more interesting and useful: each booklet starts by asking "When rounded off to the nearest thousand, it

Okay, you covered “odd” and “even” number with your students and they now know that all even numbers have a 0, 2, 4, 6 or 8 in the ones place (they don’t “end” with those digits, because numbers don’t have a “beginning” or “end,” they have “places”) and are odd if they have the digits 1, 3, 5, 7 or 9 in the ones place. All good! But let’s ramp this up a bit: your students now know one of the basic concepts of mathematics, better known as “parity,” which gives them an opportunity to conduct an i

Greetings teacher phrens, Here's the activity you've been waiting for if you want your students to become more flexible and fluent with non-routine number facts and combinations using MENTAL MATH STRATEGIES; Schools o' Fish challenges students to take 15 different numbers and arrange them in groups so that they add up to the same number (at least, in this version.) Features: • EZ Cut n' Paste Technology: the pieces have been arranged in such a way that your students can cut out all 15 in abo

"On a bad day, I have no ideas. On a good day, I have a lot of wrong ideas. At least with wrong ideas, I can mix them together and come up with a right answer." That's the idea behind this number puzzle, which I've intentionally designed to be really tricky and frustrating (at least, it was for the 3rd through 6th graders I tried it on.) The relationship between the three columns appear to be arbitrary, but there actually is some method to the madness: the students should be encouraged to come

This is a set of 2 activity sheets that use a minimum amount of text so that students can engage in solving word problems without the obstacle of decoding dull sentences. The problems are tricky not because of the wording, but because a) there is "interleaving," which means that depending on the problem, the student may have to perform addition, subtraction, multiplication or division. In addition, some of the division problems have remainders that have to be interpreted. There are 4 problems p

This is a collection of 10 different algebra puzzles that use 3 different variables which are represented as rectangles, triangles and hexagons. Yes, we know that "adult" algebra uses X, Y and Z, but since this is designed to be appealing for our younger students (and because abstraction is still tough for them) I've used these geometric shapes instead. I've also limited the kinds of numbers students use by focusing on using 0 - 9 digit cards. This is so your students will not get frustrated wh

Note: There is now a video tutorial that goes with this activity: Division With Remainders: Just Do It (RIGHT!) Your students are "learning" about division, and if you're using a really, really cruddy curriculum, then they probably all sound like this: "I have 24 blah blah blahs which I'm packing into cases of (choose some divisor of 24.) How many cases will I be able to make. This, my friends, is a lackadaisical and churlish approach to teaching students about solving problems with division.

As you know, one of the things I have always advocated is giving children math problems that are interesting and challenging. I know, I know, this flies directly in the face of “well, if we give them hard things to do, then they’ll get discouraged and think math is hard.” Well, the truth is this: math is hard! And let me say another thing: anybody, young or old, experienced or not, is either lying or has never done “real math” if they think it is “easy.” In this activity, I’m pushing you to cha

You want to have your kids practice addition and subtraction problems, with and without re-grouping, but you’re sick of the contrived “word problems” in your textbook, or find the usual activites like “Scoot” dull and repetitive. So here’s something new: addition and subtraction puzzles that are creative, open-ended and, dare I say it, “challenging!” “One, Some or None?” is a game I learned from my graduate school professor, David Fuys, who learned it from another teacher, who invented it to g

This is a collection of classic and soon-to-be classic math and strategy games that can be played by students in grades 1 - 3. Each one has been beautifully layer out with gorgeous typography and NO CUTESY DRAWINGS! This is serious math for serious kids. Not really, but there’s a lot of playful stuff here that will challenge and entertain. Included in this collection: The Golden Apple Game The Rotten Apple Game Westbury: A strategy game where you make numbers from toothpicks. Sumo: A game w

Take a number tile from a bag: is it a moose or a squirrel? This activity is a fun and lively way for your kids to practice comparing numbers and classifying them as larger (moose) or smaller (squirrel.) The fun never stops: you can start with just placing the tile on the activity sheet in the correct column, or your students can use the moose/squirrel stamps provided to cut and paste the animal into the correct column. A third variation asks students to state how far the numbers is from the co

Division is the most confusing operation we teach, and one of the reasons is that it comes in three dfferent formats (left to right, top to bottom, and "inside outside.") To make it even harder, the language can be confusing: we can say "28 ÷ 8 =" as "28 divided by 8," "how many 8s go into 28?", "8 divided into 28...." This is a set of 4 different activities that will help your students better understand the different formats that will appear when doing division. They will learn how to connect

Winning Touch is a partner activity where students use tiles to fill in the products on a multiplication board. Each student starts with 4 tiles, and then a "shared" tile is chosen to be placed on the board to begin the game. Each student takes turns finding a combination of factors that will allow a tile to be placed on the board (for example, if the student has a tile marked "18", s/he can play it on 9 and 2, 2 and 9, 3 and 6, or 6 and 3. However, the tile must touch another tile that is alrea

These are among my favorite "hands on" puzzles to have my kids learn addition facts, or do remediation for those who are having problems "catching on." There are 10 different "bean puzzles" which can be cut out and glued to a paper plate. Number them 1 - 10 so kids can keep track of which ones they've completed (1 is the easiest, 10 is the most tricky.) Students complete the puzzle by taking dried kidney beans (or bean shaped counters) and distributing them in each pan so that two pans add up to