SamizdatMath

This is a mostly excellent introduction for your 2nd - 4th grade students to the wonderful world of fractions. These are "fill in the fraction" games that use Cusenaire Rods as well as Pattern Blocks. The games are designed to be set up in under a minute: hand out the game boards to your students, and by making a long snip, a shorter snip, and 8 super short snips they'll have a game they can use to develop and deepen their basic understanding of how fractions work. The first thing these "hands o

FACT: Students need more practice solving subtraction problems. FACT: This collection has lots of subtraction problems. FACT: Not all subtraction problems are the same: some are "take away," some are "let's compare one with another," some are "I have something and took away this, now I have this...." This is a collection of over 200 different "BIG Busy Bee Hive" puzzles where students practice subtraction in a context that is fun and thoughtful. That is, yes, they get lots of opportunities to do

Description FACT: Students need more practice solving subtraction problems. FACT: This collection has lots of subtraction problems. FACT: Not all subtraction problems are the same: some are "take away," some are "let's compare one with another," some are "I have something and took away this, now I have this...." This is a collection of over 200 different "Busy Bee Hive" puzzles where students practice subtraction in a context that is fun and thoughtful. That is, yes, they get lots of opportuniti

Description FACT: Students need more practice solving subtraction problems. FACT: This collection has lots of subtraction problems. FACT: Not all subtraction problems are the same: some are "take away," some are "let's compare one with another," some are "I have something and took away this, now I have this...." This is a collection of over 200 different "Busy Bee Hive" puzzles where students practice subtraction in a context that is fun and thoughtful. That is, yes, they get lots of opportuniti

FACT: Students need more practice solving subtraction problems. FACT: This collection has lots of subtraction problems. FACT: Not all subtraction problems are the same: some are "take away," some are "let's compare one with another," some are "I have something and took away this, now I have this...." This is a collection of over 200 different "Busy Bee Hive" puzzles where students practice subtraction in a context that is fun and thoughtful. That is, yes, they get lots of opportunities to do "ta

This is a rounding game I developed for a colleague at my school: I am a working teacher (as I have been for the past 37 years) so I know stuff. And here’s what I know: games are fun, learners like to play games, and games should exercise the learner’s mind in a variety of ways. Which is how I developed the “rounding” and “un-rounding” games. The “Rounding Game” is your basic bingo game: you turn over two cards, round off the number to the nearest ten, find that rounded number on the bingo board

This is a rounding game I developed for a colleague at my school: I am a working teacher (as I have been for the past 37 years) so I know stuff. And here’s what I know: games are fun, learners like to play games, and games should exercise the learner’s mind in a variety of ways. Which is how I developed the “rounding” and “un-rounding” games. The “Rounding Game” is your basic bingo game: you turn over two cards, round off the number to the nearest ten, find that rounded number on the bingo board

This is a set of 90 puzzles (30 at each level) of Advanced "Square Knot" Puzzles focused on practicing problems solving for 1st through 3rd graders using addition and subtraction. The format is the same as other square knot puzzles, with larger numbers. Why you should try these: One of the things that we should be emphasizing from the very earliest of ages is mathematics as problem solving. This is more than writing a bunch of word problems: problem solving is about using various techniques for

This is a set of 90 puzzles (30 at each level) of "Square Knot" Puzzles focused on practicing problems solving for early learners (1st - 3rd grade) using addition and subtraction. Why you should try these: One of the things that we should be emphasizing from the very earliest of ages is mathematics as problem solving. This is more than writing a bunch of word problems: problem solving is about using various techniques for finding the correct answer. In this set of puzzles, students have to arran

This is a set of 60 puzzles (20 at each level) of "Square Knot" Puzzles focused on practicing problems solving for early learners (K - 2nd grade) using addition. Why you should try these: One of the things that we should be emphasizing from the very earliest of ages is mathematics as problem solving. This is more than writing a bunch of word problems: problem solving is about using various techniques for finding the correct answer. In this set of puzzles, students have to arrange four numbers so

79 89 99 119? 129? Take 2: 134 124 114 84? 74? Do your students struggle to count by 10s across 100? If they're doing mental math, then they probably will at one time or another. So why not help them practice this so they don't say things like "75, 85, 95, uh, uh, 105?" This is a "three-fer" - you get the group game "roller coaster" where a group of students compete cooperatively to count up and down by tens between a bottom and top number. For example, the first students says 78, the next one

This "product" is an exercise in the form of a "lightly" competitive game that uses addition and subtraction on the number line (which was invented in 1685 by the mathematician John Wallis) that students can play in any number of configurations (pairs, triplets, etc.) and in any number of ways (rolling a single die, rolling 2 dice, using the numbers individually or in combination, etc.) There are versions that use 3, 4, 5 and 6 rolls. There is a number line under each game for your students prac

Are you sick and tired of drilling & killing your kids on the combinations of 10 and just saying, "okay, there's nothing fun about this, so let's just move on." Sorry, I've got to call BS on that. Because learning combinations of 10 is also an opportunity for your students to do some problem solving, do some algebraic thinking, as well as make many, many mistakes. These are NOT worksheets! They are puzzles and are designed to be "hands on" and "manipulative." That is, your students will work w

Okay, you're teaching your kids how to do two and three column addition.... WHAT A SNOOZE! I promise you, this is going to be fun! Here's how it works: you've taught your students about regrouping/carrying in multi-column addition, and they've done a few problems and you want them to have a little more experience with it while doing some deep thinking. This is the activity for you! This collection of "ink blot addition puzzles" will engage your students in a completely different way, because

I know you've been holding your breaths for something to come out of the SamizdatMath laboratories, and here it is: The Fishy Addend Game! This is a "gameified" version of this activity, and I think it really rocks, for many, many reasons! a) It get players thinking "beyond the algorithm" - to fill up their tanks, they have to estimate, round off and strategize! B) It is adaptable to many levels of players: using the templates, you can make versions that are as challenging or as supported as

There is no cutesy kids or animals in this activity; it focuses on the math without distraction. This is an activity where children practicing using the "count up" and "count down" activity to make change from whole dollar amounts ($1, $2, $3, and in denominations up to $20.) It is designed to replicate the "real life" experience of giving change when the buyer has a non-whole dollar total. It also gives students practice in making change using coins, or combinations of bills and coins. The goa

Sforno is a game I designed to help children learn about different types of attributes. The game is similar to dominoes in that students take turns putting out a "connector" card based on the number of similar or different attributes and then placing a "creature card" that connects it to another creature. There are also 21 different puzzles that use groups of Creature Cards connecting to one another. Sforno is a fun game that is exciting for grades 2 and up.! Comes with full teaching instructi

This is a set of puzzles where students work independently to estimate how many cubes it will take to cover a digit or a written number, then cover it with rods of different lengths, and re-organize them on a grid to show how many orange and white rods it is equivalent to. The student then reads the number as tens and ones and writes it down. This is a fun activity for kindergarten and first graders, because it helps students to develop estimation skills, and then carry them over to other number

This is a collection of hands on activities where students fill an outline of a rod with smaller rods to determine the length of a unit fraction. It develops the idea of the "flexible unit" by using different rods as the "unit" and then having students try to find rods that are 1/2, 1/3, 1/4 etc. of that unit. They then record their solutions by tracing the correct rod and shading it in. There is also an activity where they also find common fractions once they find the unit fraction. For example

This is a collection of 9 different colorful Cuisenaire Rod "make the road" puzzles which challenges your students to cover a path using exactly one of each rod. Each one has a different colorful background. This is a great activity that your students can do independently during a work time or placed in a math center. There's a handy chart you can fill in with your students' names to keep track of which puzzles they've completed, with fillable form fields. There is also an option for students