Build Newspaper Towers...and Test Their Stability! 5th Grade Activity

As your young learner studies structures, he may hear that the strongest shape is the triangle. Put this architectural idea to the test by building two different newspaper towers with your child. He'll test and observe each structure's stability…trying his hand at engineering as he explores this important architectural concept.

What You Need:
Newspapers
Masking tape
Heavy desk stapler
Large paper plate
Pennies

What You Need:
Your child will be building two towers, one made out of cubes (horizontals and verticals) and the other consisting of triangles (cubes with diagonal braces). Each tower will be two cubes tall. Start by helping your child roll newspaper into tubes. Take one sheet of newspaper, folded so that you see one full page. Roll from a short side, making a tube approximately one inch thick. Tape. Make 20 for each tower.

Using staples and tape, help your child make a cube. Take 8 more newspaper tubes, and build a second cube on top of the first. Reinforce the joints with tape. You have completed one tower, two cubes tall. Repeat step 2 to build the second tower.

The braces are also of rolled newspaper but need to be slightly longer than the original tubes. Take one sheet of newspaper, folded so that you see one page and fold this page in half, top to bottom. Roll from one corner to other. Tape. Make 11 braces.

Staple or tape one of these braces diagonally across each side, the top and the base of the bottom cube in the second tower. Repeat the process with the four sides and the top of the upper cube.

Carefully stand the towers upright. Do they both stand easily? It may take some shifting to get the one without braces to remain upright. Place a paper plate on each tower. Add pennies until one tower topples. Which one turned out to be strongest? Why does he think that is?

Great Maths Websites

The links below are some great sites for the children to practice their maths skills:


http://www.aaamath.com/


http://www.coolmath4kids.com/


http://www.mathcats.com/explore.html


http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/websites/4_11/site/numeracy.shtml


http://www.funbrain.com/numbers.html

A Prime Number Maths Game - 4th Grade

What is a prime number? Check out this great way to learn. Find a deck of cards and deal them out. We hope your hand has a lot of prime numbers in it! If it does, you have a good chance of winning. If not, we wish you luck when you reach your hand over to the draw pile. Before you know it, you’ll have the first several prime numbers memorized and some great skills to take with you back to math class.

Terms to Know:
Prime Number: a number with no factors excepting itself and 1 (The first several prime numbers are 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, and 23. The number 1 is not a prime number and is instead classified as a unit.)

Factor: a number that divides evenly into another number

What You Need:
Deck of playing cards

What You Do:
Shuffle the deck and deal five cards to each player.

In this game, Aces = 1, Jacks = 11, Queens = 12, and Kings = 13.

Players take turns discarding cards, face up and one at a time, into a discard pile. Players may only discard prime numbers or a group of cards whose sum is a prime number. If a player is unable to discard a prime number, they must draw from the deck until they find or create one.

Play continues until the pack is depleted. The winning player is the player with the fewest cards left in their hand.

Build Animals Piggy Banks - 2nd Grade!

Learn about coins and their value by making an animal piggy bank. You can talk about a special trip or item for which your child can save money. This project also teaches your child to recycle a can and egg carton. Gather your supplies and be creative as you design an animal bank. Below are three suggestions for animals; however, you can use your imagination and make others.

What You Need:
empty coffee can or baby formula can
knife
scissors
markers
paintbrush
pencil
wiggly eyes
4 egg carton cups
hot glue gun
newspapers
Elmer’s Glue

Pig Bank
pink foam sheet
1 pink pipe cleaner
pink acrylic paint

Lion Bank
yellow foam sheet
yarn for the mane
yellow acrylic paint
1 yellow pipe cleaner

Sheep Bank
white foam sheet
cotton balls

What You Do:
Spread newspapers on the table. Take off the lid and paint the can the desired color for your animal. Paint the 4 egg carton cups for the legs. Allow these to dry. For the sheep, you do not need to paint your can. Just smear glue on the can and add cotton balls.

Using a pencil, trace the lid two times on the foam sheet. One circle is for the head, and one is for the animal’s backside. Cut these two circles out. If you’re making the pig, trace a smaller circle on the pink foam for the snout. Perhaps you can trace the bottom of the acrylic paint bottle. Cut this out. Snip off two small triangles for the pig’s ears. For the lion, cut two semicircles for the ears on the yellow foam sheet. For the sheep, cut long, skinny triangles for the ears.

Have a parent hot glue the wiggly eyes and ears on one circle. For the pig, hot glue the smaller circle or snout below the eyes.Using markers, make two dots on the snout of the pig. For the lion and sheep, draw the nose, mouth, freckles, and outline the ears. Then put Elmer’s glue around the edge of the lion’s face. Cut small pieces of yarn for the mane and stick on.

Next, an adult can cut a slit in the foam face and lid for the mouth. This is where the money will be inserted into the bank. Hot glue the face onto the lid by lining up the mouth holes.To make the tail for the pig, cut the pink pipe cleaner in half. Wrap it around a pencil to make a curl. Using scissors, cut a small slit in the middle of the foam circle. Insert part of the curly pipe cleaner and twist it to secure. The curly part should stick out for the piggy tail. For the lion’s tail, cut a slit in the middle of the foam circle. Insert a yellow pipe cleaner and bend it to look like a tail. For the sheep, glue on a cotton ball. Have an adult hot glue these circles to the bottom of the can.

A parent can hot glue the legs to the bottom of the can. Now your bank animal is complete!
Lay your coins on the table. Point to a coin and say its name. If correct, you may feed your animal bank. Try saying its value and feed your animal. Keep feeding your animal to save your money for something special

A fun way to practice measuring!

Check out this webpage and have fun measuring things!

http://onlineintervention.funbrain.com/measure/index.html

Make a Number Game - Perfect for 2nd Graders

This game provides your child with the opportunity to create, write, and read numbers. He’ll be using all of these skills in the middle grades, when he uses numbers, decimals, fractions, and percents to describe operations, computations, measurements, and patterns. Understanding the value of each digit in a number strengthens your child’s mathematical communication skills. Creating and reading four-digit numbers will give your child an opportunity to practice the number skills he’s learning at school. So get ready and roll the number cube!

What You Need:
Number cube
Paper
Pencil

What You Do:
Each player draws four short horizontal lines on a piece of paper. Each of the horizontal lines represents a place value. The first line represents thousands, the second line represents hundreds, the third line represents tens, and the fourth line represents ones.
Now it’s time to choose a goal - do you want to show the greatest 4-digit number or the smallest 4-digit number? Once you’ve agreed on greatest or smallest, it’s time to start rolling the number cube.
Each player rolls once and then writes the number shown on the cube on one of the lines on his paper. Here’s where strategy begins. Each player chooses where he wants to place each digit. For example, if a student rolls a “1” and the goal is to create the largest number, he may choose to place the 1 on the horizontal line holding the ones place.
This game continues until both players have filled in all four columns. The one who achieves the game goal wins that round!

What's going on? This game reinforces the connection between abstract digits and the way their values will differ depending on their place in a large number. Second graders often struggle with this idea, especially as numbers get bigger, and the more you can practice, the better. Plan to play lots of rounds--when it comes to math fundamentals, practice really does make perfect.

Explore Circumference with Your Bicycle Wheel - 5th Grade Activity

By the end of Primary, students have already learned about the basic properties of geometric shapes, but they are still exploring the many ways that geometry translates to real-world situations. Sure, finding the distance around, or the "perimeter", of a polygon like a square or triangle is pretty easy. But how about finding the distance around a circle, the "circumference"?

This hands-on-activity gives your child practice in finding the circumference of an object, while teaching her to use a step-by-step approach to gain the information necessary to solve a mathematical problem. Plus, it's a great way to get outside and have some family fun in the sun!

What You Need:

•bicycle
•a sidewalk, or some other place to ride
•a length of string
•yardstick
•paper
•pencil
•chalk (optional)

What You Do:

Step 1

Have your child ride her bicycle down the sidewalk a short, specific distance. Draw a chalk line, or use a marker such as a tree or a sign to show her where to stop. Ask her to estimate how many times her bicycle wheel went around.

Step 2

Use the string to help your child find the circumference of her bicycle wheel. Ask your child to lay her bicycle down. Hold the end of the string tightly on the tire and have your child to take the other end of the string and place it around the tire until it meets the end you are holding. Cut the string so that is reflects the measurement of the circumference of the tire. Help your child measure the string to the nearest inch. Next, have her measure the distance her bicycle wheel traveled to the nearest inch.

Step 3

Now that you have the measurement of the tire’s circumference and the measurement of the distance traveled, it's time to find the number of times your child’s bicycle wheel went around. Ask her how she would set up the problem. Working together, divide the distance traveled by the circumference of the tire to find the answer!