Fun, Hands-On Math Learning Activities

[Porridge]

DD started tutoring a rising 5th grader. She's looking for ideas for fun math-related activities. So far they've measured shadows /angles and approximated heights of trees, for example.  I suggested baking (for fractions), and Exploding Dots. 

What are some fun or memorable math activities you've done with your late elementary / middle school kids? 

 

[Clarita]

There's a book called Family Math by Jean Kerr Stenmark, Virginia Thompson and Ruth Cossey. It's basically an entire book of really great activities to build math concepts. 

There is an activity in there called number line rectangles. Basically you make a number line of numbers (as long as you can), you give the child square tiles and for each number they figure out all the ways they can make rectangles out of that particular number of squares. It's a great visual and thinking activity to see factors, square numbers, prime numbers, really helps visualize categories of numbers and makes it less abstract.