More First Day Of School Activities.

 Today, we will be looking at more activities that can be done on the first day or two of school. I do not like starting immediately with the syllabus and regular class because students seem to take a day or two to transition back into tzhe swing of things. I addressed this last week and today, we will look at a few more activities. Although, these activities may not contain direct instruction, they will be mathematically based.

Maybe start with the odd one out game. In this game, you give students a card with numbers on it but one number is not part of the pattern. The student has to identify the odd one out and they have to explain what makes it the odd one out. An example might be, 1, 4, 9,16, 25, 35, 49. The odd one out is 35 because it is not a square number.

Another activity is to have students create three dimensional shapes from colored paper and tape. The shapes students can make might be cubes, prisms, cones, cylinders, or rectangular prisms. The students have to figure out how to create the shapes rather than giving them pre-done nets. Some students might get a bit frustrated but others will have a great time. This is an activity that can provide a situation for students to collaborate.

Another activity is designed to review fractions. The idea is to pass out different shapes and then ask students to color in a potion of it to illustrate a fraction. For instance, you pass out triangles and ask students to fill in 1/3rd of it. This is a good way to figure out if students understand that all parts need to be the same size. When you have students work with different shapes, they have to think about it. Most fractions are illustrated using circles or rectangles so when you give them a trapezoid, triangle, diamond, etc, they have to figure out how to subdivide it into equal parts. 

Pass out the dice and have students calculate probabilities. Start with one dice before moving to two dice. Of course, one can also calculate the probabilities for various cards in a card deck. On the other hand, pull out the fun data so students can practice bar graphs, pie charts, line graphs, etc. it is easy to find these types of activities online. I had my students do one on blueberry production in the United States and then world wide. 

In the past, I have passed out packets of M & M’s or skittles to the students. I had them sort them into colors , create a bar graph of all the colors before asking them to figure out the percentage each color is of the whole bag. I finished off by asking them to create a pie chart.  Another activity is to pass out a candy bar to each child and ask them to calculate its volume.  I am aware one has to be aware of allergies so it might not work at your school.

Finally, bingo. It might be a mean, median, or mode version, order of operations, fractions, decimals, percent conversion, or whatever topic you want. It is easy to do. Simply, pass out empty bingo cards, give a long list of possible answers, and let the students fill out their own cards, then it’s time for the equations or data so students find the answer. This activity has always generated lots of discussion 

So with this many suggestions, you have some great choices available to make the first day of school enjoyable. Let me know what you think, I’d love to hear, have a great week.