Math Up the Olympics! Part 1

As athletes from around the world gather for the upcoming Olympic Games, it's the perfect moment to capture your child's interest in the exciting events that are about to take place – and take advantage of that interest to introduce some related mathematical concepts.
None of these activities will even cause you to break a sweat, but they will allow you to have fun with your children as you watch the games, read about them, and—perhaps—win gold medals for your amazingly quick calculations. Just don't blame us if by the end of it all you're planning a family vacation to the next Olympics!

Practice Converting Measurements Since the Olympics are an international event, distances and speeds are measured using the metric system. It can be difficult for a child to grasp the concept that people around the world use different units of measurement for the same thing, so the concrete examples of the Olympics provide the perfect way to illustrate how this works.
First, explain to your child that 1 meter is equal to 3.28 feet. That means that, for instance, the 100-meter dash is equivalent to a run of about 328 feet. Challenge your child to convert the following distance events into feet:

• When divers plunge into a pool from a board that's 10 meters high, the distance between them and the water is how many feet? (33 ft.)  
• When speed skaters complete a 500 meter race, how many feet have they skated? (1640 ft.)

Your child can also try out some currency conversions! He'll boost his research skills as he determines the current exchange rate for the Olympics host country, and practice a little math calculating how many of that currency he can get for 10 U.S. dollars.

Money Skills for Kids - 3rd Grade activity

Once your third grader has mastered counting coins up to $1.00, in school he'll begin to working numbers that make up larger dollar amounts. Chances are, he'll want to go to a store and make a purchase using his own allowance and savings. In which case, he will need to know what bills and coins he'll need to make his purchase. And when it comes to numbers, practice makes perfect. This activity will not only help him practice his math skills, like counting and addition and subtraction, but it will also give him a chance to learn more about things like purchasing and money exchange, which are important concepts to learn as he grows up.

What You Need:
•Collection of several old greeting cards (or you can make your own)
•Dollar bills and coins (5 one dollar bills and several of each coins (half-dollars, quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies)
•Unlined paper to make your cards and markers to decorate you them (if you make them yourself)
•Several shoppers and one cashier

What You Do:
1.Begin this activity with a warm up. Show your child a greeting card, toy or book and state the price. Have him arrange his bills and show what he would use to buy the card. Provide him with assistance if needed. Challenge him to come up with different dollar and coin combinations to reach the same amount.

2.You will need to either collect (you can use cards that are already used) or make a collection of greeting cards and write prices ranging from one to five dollars on the backs of the items. If you decide to make your own greeting cards, have your child make cards for various occasions using the unlined paper. Be sure he writes the prices on the backs. When the cards are completed, display them on a table for a "shopper" to browse the selection.

3.Choose one person to be the cashier for the card shop and at least one more person to be a shopper. Recruit Moms, Dads, siblings, grandparents, etc. to shop or take turns being the cashier in the card shop. Each person will select a greeting card and will give the cashier the appropriate number of bills and coins. The cashier should check that the amount is correct. You may want to have the shopper count the dollars and coins aloud for the cashier. (Everyone will most likely need to share the same money and use it more than once for multiple purchases.)

4.Allow your third grader to take turns playing both the role of the cashier and the shopper.
You can also do this activity with things other than greeting cards. A collection of baseball cards, for example, or any toys you have lying around the house. Just be sure not to write the prices on anything that you wouldn't want to be written on! A small piece of paper with the price will work just fine, if you prefer. This activity will allow your child to practice his counting skills and prepare him to make purchases on his own the next time you travel to the store together. You may be surprised at his new found confidence and purchasing skills!

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