SamizdatMath

Cuisenaire Rods and Algebra, you ask? Yes, Cuisenaire Rods AND Algebra go together! Like beans and cornbread, rods and algebra go together! Rods and algebra go hand in hand like bagels and lox. Like cornbeef and cabbage. Like pot cakes and molasses! Like liver onions, so do Cuisenaire Rods and Algebra! Like wieners and sauerkraut, you need to use Cuisenaire Rods and Algebra! Has this convinced you? Okay, here's how it works: one of the things that consistently trips up our algebra students in

This is a set of "inkblot" subtraction strategies that are much different from the cruddy old "drill & kill" worksheets with cutesy characters you probably are using. These activities engage your students in deep thinking about how subtraction works and the strategies we use to solve the column based subtraction algorithm. Do NOT use this if your kids prefer to do routine sorts of problems or they don't want to deepen their understanding of mathematics. The goal here is to deepen conceptual

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

I don't know if you're a fan of Saturday Night Live, but I remember watching this commercial back in the 1990s and thinking, "You know, that would be a really good math activity." But I never got around to it. Fast forward 25 years and I"m at the ATM and I see a screen that shows that I can now choose exactly which bills I want for my withdrawal. OMG! It's time to make this activity "live!" So I went home, made this activity and tried it out on my second graders. Okay, there were a bit cocky at

This is an activity that teaches students to classify acute, obtuse, straight and right angles using semaphore flag signals. Why semaphore flag signals? Because they're fun, interesting and "real." And also, they're a good example of how to teach a concept beyond the "prototypes." What do I mean by this? Well, do an image search on "right angle" and you'll see that the examples that show up are "textbook prototypes." That is, they all have a side resting on the horizontal, the other on the verti

Here’s a nice little “take home” activity that develops both visual spatial skills, mathematical vocabulary AND it's really fun! Here’s how it works: print out the puzzles and challenge booklet on card stock (or laminate before cutting out...) and have your kids cut them out. The kids cut out the “clue cards” and have kids write clues about the different puzzles. Then they can share their cards and look at one another’s clue cards, find the shape it is describing and use the puzzle pieces to “s

This is a game I invented which can be played by two to three players. Each player gets dealt 4 cards which they place face up in front of them. By selecting cards from the "select pile" (face down) or the "discard pile" (face up), players try to make a "run" of 4 consecutive numbers in a skip counting pattern. The set includes skip counting cards for 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12s. You can easily modify this game to make it trickier by having students try to get 5 or 6 cards in a row. My stude

Here is an interesting fact: did you know that most castles built during the middle ages were made from wood? It's a true fact! But you're probably thinking: wait, if most castles were made of wood, how come when you google the word "castle," all you see are stone edifices? The answer is: survivor bias! Think about it: you build a wood castle, and over the years, what's the thing that threatens it most? FIRE! So all those wood castles burnt to the ground over the last thousand years, while the

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

This is a set of 9 Christmas/Holiday themed math mystery puzzles. 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

This is a collection of 8 different Christmas/Winter Holiday Themed "matrix addition" puzzles which use funky symbols as clues to figure out the answers. They were designed for 2nd graders, but you could use them with advanced first graders, or just throw them at some third and fourth graders to see how they react. They're sort of algebraic puzzles that you can have a lot of fun with and who doesn't like fun? Comes in color and b/w for your printing pleasure! What makes this really cool is th

This is the same as Number Logic Puzzles Silly Creatures with a winter theme, which should really motivate your students! This is a fun little booklet that your students can put together in about 3 minutes and we’ll really give them some fun working logically - and because this is something you purchased from me, your kids will also have a chance to make their own puzzles to share with one another. Ain’t that cool? Comes in b//w and color booklets - the color booklets have been formatted to g

This is a winter themed variation of Silly Creatures Number Logic Puzzles, a fun little booklet that your students can put together in about 3 minutes and features 2 kinds of objects to decipher. This version involves three different objects to interpret, which will really give them something fun to do and most likely fry their brains by working logically - and because this is something you purchased from me, your kids will also have a chance to make their own puzzles to share with one another.

Note: this is the same as the "winter theme three part number logic puzzles," but with "silly icons" instead of "winter icons." This is a sequel to Silly Creatures Number Logic Puzzles, a fun little booklet that your students can put together in about 3 minutes and features 2 kinds of objects to decipher. This version involves three different objects to interpret, which will really give them something fun to do and most likely fry their brains by working logically - and because this is somethin

Here’s a set of puzzles that will promote the use of “backwards thinking.” That is, the technique is to look at where you want to “end” and then work backwards step by step in order to get to the beginning. Some people refer to this as “guess and check,” but that is incorrect: that technique involves putting in possible solutions and then starting from the beginning to see if the solution is correct. Eh, no, that’s not quite the way it works.In working backwards, you get to the beginning by work

This is an investigation where your students design, cut out and fold different networks in order to determine which ones will become a cube. Students are introduced to the concept of a network, learn how it can be used to form different types of polyhedra, and then investigate different ways (there are 11) to create a 2-D net that can be folded into a cube. Students then take the "working" and "non-working" nets and sort them onto a sheet, then compare their properties. There is also an activi

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 an activity I’ve done with my 5th, 6th and 7th graders to help them understand the importance of “thinking” before rounding off a number. You know, some of us (not you, of course) teach rounding as a “rule” and our students blindly go off rounding numbers without thinking about the implication of doing so. These two activities are designed to impress upon your students that when they round off a number, they should do it with a certain amount of forethought, because if they blindly follo

This is an activity that I used as a kind of “warm-up” to a unit on fractions with my 5th graders; I wanted to relate fractions to ratios, as well as see what the classes had remembered from the previous year. I gave out this activity, put the students in dyads (that’s groups of 2, for those of you who have forgotten their Greek, it means students work in pairs of 2.) They complete the activity sheet and then write up a summary of their findings, which they post on a wall. You can use this acti

These are four puzzles that explore the issue of parity, which has to do with the "evenness" and "oddness" of a number. The first two puzzles involve "visual parity," which has to do with how two colors or shapes "match" up to one another. The second two are puzzles that involve numerical parity, neither of which has a solution due to the nature of odd and even numbers. They come in poster form, or you can print them out 4 to a sheet a leave them around for your students to puzzle over. Include