Math Activities: Elementary-Age Kids

There are many different math activities for elementary-age kids that can be used to teach a new concept to children. They provide a hands on or kinesthetic learning approach to supplement classroom instruction.

Shapes Math Activities

There are many math activities for elementary-age kids that teach shapes. Children must first learn circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles. Advanced children can learn rhombi, pentagon (five sides), hexagon (6 sides), and octagon (8 sides.)

• Shaving Cream Shapes: Place a small dab of shaving cream on a flat surface. Spread it out until it makes a thin layer. Children should place one hand behind their back and use one finger to draw their shapes (and avoid making a mess.)

• Shape Centers: Have one sheet of legal size paper for every child in the group. Draw one shape on each paper and place the papers around the room. Stand each child in front of a paper. Start a timer, and give the children thirty seconds to draw the shape in front of them on the legal size paper. When the timer rings, each child can rotate to the next shape until all shapes have been drawn.

• Make-a-Shape: Cut various materials, such as popsicle sticks, ribbon, pipe cleaner, or yarn, into two-inch pieces. Children can use the pieces to make various shapes, such as a rectangle or rhombus.

• Magazine Shapes: Children can cut out pictures in magazines to find various shapes. For example, a wheel on a car is a circle. A clock may be in the shape of a circle, and a refrigerator could be a rectangle. Children can then glue their pictures on a large piece of paper divided into four parts and organized by shape.

Patterns

Patterns come in all shapes and sizes. There are many math activities for elementary kids that teach patterns.

• Shapes: Make a pattern with various shapes. Draw a circle, square, circle, and square. Ask children to draw what comes next.

• Colors: Patterns can be made of different colors. Use colors to teach patterns. For example, draw six large circles O O O O O O. The first circle could be colored blue. The second circle could be colored red. The third circle could be colored blue. The fourth circle red and so on.

• Pictures: A pattern can also be created using different pictures, such as an ice cream cone, a banana, an ice cream cone, and a bannana. Children can place the picture of the object that comes next in the pattern (in this case an ice cream cone.)

• Beads: Stringing beads will help children learn patterns. For example, a pattern could be created by stringing a clear bead, purple bead, clear bead, and purple bead.

• Confetti: Buy a pack of confetti that is made out of various shapes, colors, or designs. For example, some confetti is made of circles, stars, or squares. Use the confetti shapes to make a pattern. Glue down a confetti that is a star, square, star, and square. Ask children to glue down the next few shapes to complete the pattern.

When working with patterns, allow children to use different elements to create their own patterns. Create simple patterns for them and let them practice predicting what will come next. Very young children may only be able to follow simple patterns involving only two differing elements, but older children may be able to predict very complicated patterns. Mastermind is an excellent board game that develops a child's ability to deduce patterns.

Manipulatives

Manipulatives make abstract math problems more concrete because they allow children to see what each number means. Manipulatives can be blocks that children use to add, subtract, multiply, or divide. Manipulatives help young children understand why 2 + 2 = 4 because two blocks put together with another two blocks makes four blocks. They also help children understand more advanced concepts, such as multiplication.

Math Activities: Elemenatary-Age Kids Summary

There are many different ways to teach math concepts to children. Whether children are tackling a math problem or learning a new shape, math activities make learning fun.