Junior - Special Activities (2)

Grades 3-5
What you'll need Newspaper, calculator, pencil, paper, and graph paper (can be hand-drawn)

What to do


1. List it. Give your child the grocery section of the newspaper in order to make up a list of foods that will feed the family for a week and also meet a budget of a certain amount of money. Have your child make a chart and use mental math or a calculator to figure the cost of a few items. If the total for the groceries is more than you have budgeted for, talk about which items can be eliminated. Could the list be cut down by a few items or by buying less of another item? What will best serve the needs of the family?


2. Shop around. Have your child search for advertisements in the newspaper for an item they have been wanting, such as a piece of clothing or tennis shoes, in order to find the lowest price for the item. After your child finds the best buy, have him or her compare the best buy to the rest of the advertised prices. Are this store's prices lower for everything or just items in demand?


3. Highs and lows. Have your child search the newspaper for daily temperatures and create a graph showing weekly trends. Ask your child for the differences in temperature from day to day.
Parent Pointer
This activity helps children see how much math is used in everyday life. It also helps in the variety of ways in which math is used to tell a story, read a timetable or schedule, plan a shopping list, or study the weather.

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Grades 4-5


Squash That Box


Ever notice what happens when you flatten cereal boxes, tin cans, or other 3-dimensional shapes for recycling? Or do you ever wonder how they design and make all those interesting containers you find in the department store? Mathematicians call the flat, unfolded designs of 3-dimensional shapes "nets."


What you'll need:

Small cardboard boxes, aluminum cans, and cardboard tubes from toilet paper or paper towels


What to do


1. Explain to your child that when we recycle materials, we need to flatten them. Ask him or her why (to save space). Ask your child to imagine what shapes will be created when you flatten the boxes or cans. Some people crush cans, which is not the same as flattening. When you take apart a cylinder, you have two circles for the ends and the flat cylinder makes a rectangle. Cut a cardboard tube lengthwise. What shape do you see (a rectangle)? What will a cereal box look like if you carefully unfold it and cut along the edges?


2. Unfold a cardboard box, without showing your child the original box. Ask your child to imagine what the original box looked like. What shape will it be when it is put back together?



3. How will the ends look?
Have your child trace all the faces of a box or other 3-dimensional shapes by laying every side and top and bottom on the paper to be traced. Ask the child the names of the drawn 2-dimensional shapes.


4. Have your child study a box. Then see if your child can draw a net (the unfolded version) of the box. Unfold the box to see how closely the drawn net corresponds to the actual net. What would the net of a pyramid look like? What would the net of a cube look like?

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Tracking Time


Grades 2-5


What you'll need:

Clock or watch, newspaper, blank paper, and graph paper (can be hand-drawn)


What to do


1. Together with your child, keep track of the time he or she spends watching television as well as doing homework. Make a table listing the 7 days of 1 week. Keep two columns, one for television and one for homework. At the end of the week, see if together you can make a graph comparing the two different activity columns.


2. While watching television, make a chart showing how much time in every hour is used for commercials compared to how much time is used for the actual show. Do this for every half-hour of television you watch. Then make a bar or pie chart showing the two amounts. Time the minutes carefully.


3. Together with your child, keep track of how he or she spends time in one 24-hour period: time spent sleeping, eating, playing, reading, and going to school. Measure a strip of paper that is 24 inches long. Let each inch represent 1 hour. Color in the number of hours for each activity, using a different color for each activity. When finished, make the strip into a circle and place it on a blank piece of paper. Trace around the circle. Then make lines from the center of the circle to the end of each color. Your child has just made a circle (pie) chart of how he or she spends 24 hours. Compare this with how other people in your family spend their time.

Parent Pointer
Statistics includes collecting information, analyzing it, and describing or presenting the findings in an organized way.


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Math on the Go



In this busy world, we spend a lot of time moving from place to place in our cars, on buses and trains, and on foot. Use your traveling time as an opportunity to learn about math. Look around as you travel from place to place, and help your child find numbers on buildings, buses, taxis, and houses that they can add and subtract while on the road. Not only will your child be learning and practicing math skills, but the time you spend traveling will go by more quickly as well.


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Number Search
Grades K-3
What you'll need:


Paper, pencil, and ruler





What to do



Create a chart that lists the numbers from 1 to 50.
Write down each number as family members locate that number on a car, a sign, a building, or other objects in your community.
Write down words that have numbers in them, such as "one stop shopping," "two day service," "buy one, get one free," or "open seven days a week."

Parent Pointer
This activity provides children with lots of opportunities to practice number recognition, as well as counting and writing skills.

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License Plate Special



Grades 2-5


What you'll need:


License plates, paper, pencil, and ruler



What to do



1. Copy down a license plate number as you are traveling in your car, walking around the neighborhood, or sitting on a park bench watching cars go by. Read the license plate as a number (excluding the letters). For example, if the license were 663M218, the number would be six hundred and sixtythree thousand two hundred and eighteen.
2. Find other license plates and read their numbers. Is the number less than, greater than, or equal to yours?
3. Estimate the difference between your number and another license plate. Is it 10, 100, 1,000, or 10,000?
4. Record the names of the states of many different license plates as you see them. From which state do you see the most? Which has the fewest? Prepare a chart or graph to show your findings.



Parent Pointer
This license plate activity encourages reading, recognizing numbers, noticing symbols, writing, counting, and graphing.

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License Plate Riddles

Grades K-5
What you'll need:License plates, paper, and pencil
What to do

1. While traveling in a car, or on a bus, everyone watches for license plates, focusing on one in particular for 5 minutes. The object is to use the digits on the license plate to make the largest 3-digit number possible. When a player chooses a license plate during the 5-minute watching period, they call out the 3-digit number they have made from the license plate. The person with the largest number wins the round. Try the next round so the winner is the person with the smallest 3-digit number.
2. Let each letter on a license plate be worth the value of its position in the alphabet. A= 1, M =13, Z = 26. Each person chooses a license plate and adds the value of the letters. The person with the lowest or the highest value wins the round.

For younger children, this activity can be simplified by having them find the largest single digit, or double digit, or even add all the numbers on the license plate, or just recognize digits.


Parent Pointer
This game helps children to develop their knowledge of numbers and to think algebraically.



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Parent Pointer
The problem-solving and computational skills your child uses in this activity are very important to mental math skills, and they also help your child to be creative with numbers.




Total It



Grades 3-5



What you'll need:


License plates, paper, pencil, and calculator



What to do



As you are traveling in your car, or on a bus, each person takes turns calling out a license plate number.
All players try to add the numbers in their heads. Talk about what strategies were used in the mental math addition. Were the numbers added by 10's like 2+8? Were doubles like 6+6 added?
Try different problems using the numbers in a license plate. For example, if you use the plate number 663M218, ask "Using the numbers on the plate, can you make 5?"
5 using two numbers? "Yes, 3+2 = 5"
5 using three numbers? "Yes, (3+2) x 1 = 5"
5 using four numbers? "Yes, (6+3+1) ÷ 2 = 5"
5 using five numbers? "Yes, (6+6+3) - (8+2) = 5"
5 using six numbers? "Yes, (6+6) + (3x1) - (8+2) = 5"



Try using a calculator to play these games. See if you can solve these problems faster using the calculator.

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How Long? How Far?



Grades 1-3



What you'll need:


Information about how far you're traveling and how long it will take



What to do



Many times when you are on the go, you are headed somewhere that requires you to be there by a certain time.
Ask your children how far they think you have traveled and how much more you have to travel.
Talk about how long it takes to get to your destination. If it is 3:15 now, and it takes 45 minutes to get there, ask if you will make it for a 4:15 appointment?
How much extra time will there be? Will we be late?



Parent Pointer
This car, bus, or train traveling exercise provides many opportunities for children to use mental math and estimation to calculate time and distance problems.