Math fun

I am trying to find new ways to make math more fun and interesting around here.  We have had a lot of grumbling and moaning lately about doing math, so I thought I'd share some ways I'm trying to make it more interesting. 

My most favorite thing, first of all, is to find fun hands on activities.  Recently, on veterans day, I decided we needed something fun.  I came across army men math at almost unschoolers which fit perfectly with my boys.  They were happy to see me bring out their collections of army men.

I told them what we were doing, and that they needed to start by counting how many army men they have.  I showed them how to put them in groups of 5 to count them easily. I think we came up with just over 200 between the 2 boys.

Then they sorted them into matching groups.  It was fun to really look at the army men and see what they are really doing in their many different poses.  We tried some venn diagram stuff too.

All the sorted army men.  Such a fun activity! This quickly morphed into them playing army men battle, so we didn't do much more than that.

I also recently discovered another way to do fun math everyday at Bedtime math.  We have been doing the daily math problem each day this week.  Some of them really get the kids thinking, and have really brought to my attention that my kids really struggle with word problems.  So, this has been great in that way too.  They have books in print too. I have them on hold from our library to try them out.  We do them anytime of the day, usually as a warm-up for math.

Well, that's all I have to say about that.  I'm on the lookout for more fun math opportunities.  I'd like to make this subject come alive for the kids, and I think this has been a good start!

Desiree