Sample Activities

These activities are based on using our Preferred Materials. Please try some. If you don't have our preferred materials they can be adapted to work with other resources. They may help you decide to join Calculating Changes. Member schools have access to many more, as shown in the Activities Checklist below.

... Ten Friends
... Ten Tens
... Number Shapes
... Fractions, Plugs & a Calculator
... Order Of Operations
... Predict A Count
... Wipe Out

... Activities Check List
Print this PDF file to keep a record of the activities you use and to remind you of the ones you have yet to use. (Updated: 03/12/2008)

... Sortable Activity List
Open this spreadsheet to sort activities by Year Levels. Go to Activities from this spreadsheet. (Updated: 03/12/2008)

... More Poly Plug activities
... Poly Plug Paper - 12 small boards
... Poly Plug Frame - 1 large board
... More Calculator activities

NOTES

  1. Members have collected many activities suitable for 'threading'. This is a teaching strategy which creates time for children to construct their own learning. If an activity is rich in mathematical content and can be revisited as a familiar context involving a new challenge, it is used for small amounts of time 2 or 3 days a week for several weeks. Several of the activities above have this feature, but perhaps the most obvious is Predict A Count.

  2. As explained in Preferred Materials, MathMate was our preferred calculator. When it was discontinued we shifted our (qualified) recommendation to The MathMaster. For the most part, references to MathMate in these activities apply equally well to The MathMaster.
Make two piles of counters add to 10.
Write what you have done on your calculator.

What happens if we make three piles that add to 10?