So you’re picking out the Halloween costumes for your child to get ready for the upcoming Trick or Treating, and you want it to be an educational experience for your child as well … right?
Terri Evans has a great idea to help reinforce math principles to your children during this very spooky holiday! Here’s the article Terri wrote:
Halloween Math Makes Math More Interesting
Halloween math is a great way to motivate kids to actually want to do math. Let’s face it, math isn’t always a favorite subject. But it will quickly become a favorite when you add a Halloween twist to math practice. There are many different skills that can be practiced by adding a Halloween twist to math practice. Below are my three favorite ways to get kids excited about math as Halloween approaches.1. Grab Some Pumpkins There are many different Halloween math activities that can be done with a few pumpkins. Get about 6 or 7 pumpkins and label each of them with a letter or to make it even more fun let the kids give each one a name. Now the kids can get involved in estimating and measuring. Have them order the pumpkins according to weight, from the smallest to the largest. Then they can estimate how much each pumpkin weights. They can also estimate the circumference of each pumpkin and then the height and width of each one. If this is a bit difficult for the kids, do the measuring for one of the pumpkins first so that the kids will have some idea of the mass and measurements on one pumpkin before they do their estimating for the others.
After all of the estimating has been done it is time to start measuring. Get out the scales and some measuring tapes and record the weight, circumference, height and width of each. Children can then record their results and see how accurate their estimates were.
2. Halloween Buzz Buzz is a counting game that has been played by kids for ages. It can quickly become a Halloween math game just by changing the word ‘buzz’ to a Halloween word. You might like to use ‘Dracula’, ‘Boo’ or ‘trick or treat’. Start with multiples of seven being the banned numbers that have to be replaced by the buzz word.
To play the kids just go around the group counting in ones but when they get to the number seven, any multiple of seven or any number that contains a seven, they say the buzz word instead. If they don’t they are out. So the counting should sound like this – one, two, three, four, five, six, ‘boo’, eight, nine ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, ‘boo’ etc. Sounds easy but does require concentration and also a good knowledge of multiples.
3. Build a Skeleton In this Halloween math game, two teams or two players compete against each other. This game involves choosing a basic skeleton shape to be drawn as the game progresses. A math question or problem is given and the first player or team to answer correctly wins the right to draw a piece of the skeleton. The first team or player to complete the skeleton is the winner. To make it even more fun paper skeletons can be bought and pulled apart. The winner of each round can then take one piece of their skeleton. The game is over when one player or team has all of the pieces of the skeleton.
Not all kids like math but when math becomes Halloween math this will change and the kids will be begging for more. Hope the kids enjoy these Halloween math activities. Happy Halloween!
About the Author
Teresa Evans is a parent and teacher who has created a range of kids Halloween Activities. Get your Halloween printables here www.kids-halloween-activities.com