SamizdatMath

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

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

Many, MANY years ago I had a student in a 7th grade math class who was working on some kind of assignment that required solving the problem 25 ÷ 8. He called me over and pointed out that there must be some kind of error in the problem, because 8 does not go into 25. Being the budding klugarsch that I was, I remarked that, in fact, 8 did “go into” 25 (if you mean how many times can you count up by 8s before getting past 25), but that it didn’t do so without leaving a remainder. Which got me thin

Here’s the problem with teaching any kind of technique in mathematics: once you have kids practice it, they discard all the other techniques they know, even if the ones they discard are faster, more efficient and more accurate. Such is the case with teaching “stacking” of addition problems. Sure, it’s a great skill to have, but is it always necessary? I say this: based on some statistic I ran, between 70 - 80% of all addition problems with two addends don’t need to be stacked. Yet we act as if

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

GaOn is a multi-digit addition/subtraction strategy game that can be played in different ways. Players take turns selecting cards and attempt to form an equation that satisfies the conditions written on the challenge card. Includes game boards, challenge cards, recording sheets and detailed instructions. SamizdatMath does not use or endorse the use of "cutesy" clip art.

BY SPECIAL REQUEST! For those of you who enjoyed Coin KenKen and Ultra Coin KenKen, I know bring you TURBO COIN KENKEN: a 5 x 5 grid with half dollars, quarter dollars, dimes, nickels and pennies to arrange on a grid so that the values equal to the shaded in area, and all coins appear once in each column and row. 5 puzzles, 5 answer sheets. Happy Problem Solving to All!

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

This is NOT your typical "is this a prime or composite number, and if it is composite, show the prime factor" exercise. No, this is an activity that actually demonstrates how figuring out prime factors is linked to encrypting information securely. If you know about the Russian Postal Service puzzle, then you'll appreciate this. There are 10 different puzzles, and then a "DIY" where your students can make their own "prime puzzlers" to share with one another. If they're really good, send them to

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 this is going to come up on every search of the novel "The Outsiders," but don't blame me - it was Peggy Kaye who came up with this simple and easy division partitioning game where pairs of kids draw between 10 and 25 Xs on a piece of paper, then throw out anywhere from 1 to 5 fingers, add them (the fingers) together and use that as a divisor to partition the Xs into groups by circling them. The player with the fewest "outsiders" is declared the winner. Easy peasy, fun game, right? WRONG!

This is one of a series of activities that helps children “break down” numbers. One of the things that I’ve noticed about mathematics curricula is that there is a lot of focus on putting numbers together, but not enough on breaking numbers apart. Perhaps it’s because breaking numbers apart is a lot harder to teach and learn; after all, addition is commutative, and it’s sort of fun, because you get more (except when you’re using negative numbers.) But in order for children to learn how to do thin

This is Max Forstat; she owns a building which has 4 apartments per floor. There are 6 floors in the building. She decides to number the apartments from 1 to 24, starting from the ground floor. Apartments 1 through 4 are on the first floor, 5 - 8 on the second, and so on. How would you figure out which floor each apartment is located? This activity gets students involved in performing division with and without remainders, and then using the remainder to determine the floor and location of the ap

This is the same as Number Logic Puzzles Silly Creatures with a Valentines 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 t

The concept is simple: add two adjacent hexagons to find the sum and fill in the hexagon ABOVE them, and subtract two adjacent hexagons to fill in the difference in the hexagon BELOW them! Sounds easy, right? Well, maybe not: it's not like you can just start in the middle row and move up and down: to solve it, you have to locate the right place to start, which may be a row up or down, or near the top or bottom. As you fill in each of the solutions, more and more clues emerge, and eventually th

This is a collection of 34 different hexagonal subtraction/additional/logic puzzle cards (hence, the title above) which uses 5 rows containing clues that have to be figured out by moving around the puzzle in different directions. Very simply, each pair of hexagons add up to the hexagon above that connects them. However, in many cases you can't add the two hexagons together, because there is missing information that won't show up until you solve other parts of the puzzle. It's great because not o

This is a collection of 40 different hexagonal subtraction/additional/logic puzzle cards (hence, the title above.) It includes a solution recording sheet, so your students can do them in any order they want. These would be best used for advanced first graders (who want to tackle double digit addition), 2nd graders who are practicing single and double digit subtraction and addition, and assessing and remediating 3rd graders and above. What's nice about these puzzles is that they are "threefers" -

This is a set of activities where students take numerical skip counting patterns and translate them into visual patterns on the hundreds chart. It is based on this article I wrote for my blog: http://bltm.com/blog/2012/09/19/an-old-dog-learns-a-new-trick/ BUT! This activity, which is 30 pages long, takes the basic idea of "visualizing" skip counting patterns and LIGHTS IT UP! Instead of just coloring in the multiples of 2s, 3s, 4s, etc, you can also have your students try some "experiments." F

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

Your students like zombies, they LOVE math and now they're going to LOVE LOVE LOVE arrays! In this game, a horde of zombies have escaped and are running all over the place!!!!! Your students take an array card that tells them how many boxes have to be in the array, and they draw a "cage" around the zombies to quarantine them from the living folk. They record the size of the array and the number of squares inside, and the number of zombies caught. When there are no more zombies to catch, each per