Today I’m sharing two mathematical puzzles with you that Ivan Moscovich calls Pattern 15 and Pattern 30. Earlier this school year, I browsed a bunch of puzzle books looking for puzzles to post in my classroom that didn’t involve manipulating pieces. This was weird for me because I was intentionally trying to avoid the exact …
Middle School Math
I first ran across Erich Friedman’s Plus Times Puzzles back in 2019. I have featured several of Erich’s puzzles on my blog before including Arrows Puzzle, Ducks and Snakes Puzzle, Equation Rotation Puzzle, Connect the Dots, and Hidden Equation. I was super excited when I discovered that he has an entire page of puzzles online …
I created this factors race activity to give my math concepts students practice listing all of the factors of a number. I shared it on twitter in January 2018, and it’s only now making it to my blog in January 2020. Better late than never, right?!? To prep for the activity, I printed 4 sheets …
I can’t remember exactly how I ran across this Chinese equivalent fractions task, but I really like it. Fill in the blank to create equivalent fractions.
I really like this Chinese order of operations task that asks students to determine whether each pair of expressions evaluates to the same value. I think this would make a great introduction or review of order of operations.
I’m making the most of the $2 I spent on this recent Goodwill find. The Giant Book of Hard-to-Solve Mind Puzzles is out-of-print which makes used copies from Amazon VERY expensive. If you happen upon a copy of this book at a thrift store or used book shop, it’s definitely worth picking up a copy! …
Genius Blocks are my latest classroom creation. They are perfect for a classroom puzzle table or a creative way to practice mental math with integer operations. Last summer, I ran across several craft ideas on twitter involving wooden blocks. So I promptly went on Amazon and bought a bag of 100 one inch wooden cubes. …
I’m here today to share with you the Twelve Envelopes Puzzle. I’ve finally reached a point in the summer where my brain has started thinking about ideas for the new school year. Actually, I’ve been thinking about next year since around February or March, but I’ve finally stopped *just* thinking about next year and started …
This prime factorization foldable is one of my Algebra 1 students’ most-used resources throughout our radicals unit. I was inspired to create this foldable after one of my eighth graders commented that it would be cool to have something in our notes that gave us every single prime factorization. I took this idea and ran …
I created this prime factorization graphic organizer for my Algebra 1 students to summarize two different methods for finding prime factorization: the factor tree method and the birthday cake method. I teach my Algebra 1 students to simplify radicals through prime factorization because it works no matter what the index of the radical is. This …
Yesterday, I shared about all the amazing things I learned/experienced as part of the Tulsa Math Teachers’ Circle Summer Immersion Workshop. As part of that post, I mentioned that I had created some factor tree puzzles after being inspired by the puzzles shared by Dr. Harold Reiter and the puzzle created by one of the …
Today I’m sharing an equivalent fractions card sort activity I recently created. My Math Concepts students are currently working through a self-paced review of all things fractions. One key skill for my students to wrap their minds around is the idea of equivalent fractions. Proof this skill is important: I still have students in my …
We had some fun playing the Fraction Capture Game in Math Concepts. We haven’t reviewed improper fractions yet, so we’ll get another chance to play with an increased level of strategy after that.
When my husband (formerly an Australian maths teacher) and I were dating, he wrote a blog post where he shared how he used the Sieve of Eratosthenes with students. I was blown away by this post because I’d used this activity with students before but never exactly like the way he explained. Shaun didn’t just …
My math concepts students are slowly improving their integer skills. To aid in this process, we’ve been tackling an Integer Squares Math puzzle from Developing Mathematical Fluency at the start of every class period.
After reviewing the order of operations, we completed this negatives and exponents graphic organizer in our Algebra 1 interactive notebook. I think in the future, I would make this activity into some sort of card sort instead. I also wish I would have had a place where students formally recorded the difference between a negative …
I created this foldable to give my Algebra 1 students some practice with the order of operations. These were definitely complex problems. I wrote them to involve negatives with exponents, absolute value bars, radicals, and fractions. One of the key skills I am trying to teach my algebra students is that there are more types …
I love this “One Incorrect” Order of Operations Activity that was shared by Greta Bergman. Students are given 8 expressions. 7 of the expressions simplify to -13. 1 of them doesn’t. I challenge students to complete problems until they find the one that doesn’t equal -13. I tell them that when they find that one, …
I created this order of operations graphic organizer for our Algebra 1 interactive notebooks. My students may have been looking at order of operations problems for years, but these problems most likely didn’t contain grouping symbols such as absolute value bars, radicals, or fraction lines. My students need practice with this broader definition of grouping …
Last year, I learned about an activity called “Make a Million” from Julie Morgan who blogs at Fraction Fanatic. I tried this out with students several times throughout the year. It’s perfect for those awkward five minutes when you get through your lesson plan way faster than you expected. Kids LOVED it, but every time …
I created these prime numbers below 100 charts for my Algebra 1 students to glue in their interactive notebooks. To help my students remember their prime numbers, I created a quarter sheet with each of the prime numbers below 100 for my students to glue in their notebooks. I have a few students repeating Algebra …
I gave my students a prime factorization practice booklet which gave them a chance to try out both methods we learned for prime factorization – the factor tree method and the birthday cake method. After giving students a bit of time to work each problem, a student volunteer came to the SMARTBoard to present a …
If you haven’t tried “Quarter the Cross” yet with your students, what are you waiting for??? Not sure what “Quarter the Cross” is? You must stop immediately and read David Butler’s blog post about it! David has created a hundred solutions to this puzzle and made them into a beautiful graphic. Seriously, stop reading this …
I ran across this scientific notation dominoes activity while planning my scientific notation unit, but I didn’t end up using it. I am still including it here because I think it is a great activity! Link to Download Scientific Notation Dominoes Scientific Notation Dominoes
Scientifico was probably my favorite activity we did for practicing scientific notation. I found it online here. To play this game, you’ll need game boards for each pair of students, three dice for each pair of students, and a recording sheet for each student. I recommend laminating these game boards for durability. Of course, I …