Fun Friday Math

I am always trying to figure out ways to inspire math students to think and use numbers in a fun and different way. Fun Friday math/art stations are often the best way to do so ... we take what we've been learning in our books, and play with that knowledge in a very hands-on way. Here is an example of what was happening in our math class yesterday:

Folu loves anything with an artistic bent. We've been exploring how addition and multiplication are related, and making illustrated math stories are a great way to show this. He used stamp pads, his finger prints, and a pencil to create this beautiful math problem - if one bee has 3 stripes, how many stripes do 3 bees have?

In our math books, the students are asked to recognize and continue patterns. Seeing patterns in math is crucial for good number sense. We read a story yesterday about Fibonacci, and learned about the Fibonacci sequence. Several children decided to make a Fibonacci necklace with beads 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21 ...

One of the most popular choices was catalog shopping! I've been collecting toy catalogs from the Sunday paper so children could practice their money skills. They were each given a $100.00 budget and were instructed to write the item and item price correctly. They were so excited to see sale prices and coupons, and definitely made full use of all the "deals". (We aren't quite ready to deal with sales tax!)