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Use the search filters below to return results. Keep an eye out for some of my top favorites-- my "BookSmart Picks"-- that are sure to entertain and educate your kids! And, many activities use common materials you likely have at home already. Look for entries marked with the "Common Items" icon to find activities that shouldn't require any purchase.
Lady Di of Ameter, Sir Cumference, and Reginald Parton, the Earl of Fracton are all enjoying the Fracton Faire. Here at the faire, one can buy all of just part of a good being sold. In this way, the book explains numerators and denominators, equal parts, and equivalent fractions…
Lady Di of Ameter, Sir Cumference, and Reginald Parton, the Earl of Fracton are all enjoying the Fracton Faire. Here at the faire, one can buy all of just part of a good being sold. In this way, the book explains numerators and denominators, equal parts, and equivalent fractions. But then they find that a group of men are stealing from the faire (and in comes the concept of fractions of a set), so they hatch a plan to catch them through a fraction hunt resulting in a prize of a gold coin. While this book does a good job of hitting on many of the foundational fraction concepts that children learn in third grade, I would definitely not recommend this book until children have completed or nearly completed their first fractions unit in school. The book simply doesn’t spend long enough on any of the concepts to be a solid explanation, but would be a good way to reinforce these concepts once they have been learned.
Use the weekly advertising circulars you get in the mail to help your child practice using decimals in arithmetic. Let them choose their favorite products and identify their prices then challenge them with different tasks using each of the operations.
Use the weekly advertising circulars you get in the mail to help your child practice using decimals in arithmetic. Let them choose their favorite products and identify their prices then challenge them with different tasks using each of the operations. This activity is a great way to push your child just a bit at a time, seeing how they do on one task to determine if they are ready for the next challenge you have ready for them.
In this activity, your child will sort candy by color and determine what fraction of the total each color group represents. Then, candy pieces are drawn blindly and the results are compared to the probability indicated by the original fractions.
Use candy to teach your child the basics of probability! With just a bit of familiarity with fractions and some candy of different colors on hand, you can have fun and learn all about chance. In this activity, your child will sort candy by color and determine what fraction of the total each color group represents. Then, candy pieces are drawn blindly and the results are compared to the probability indicated by the original fractions.
This game is good practice for comparing fractions. With multiple numerators and denominators to work with, your child can try out a number of different strategies to compare.
This game is good practice for comparing fractions. With multiple numerators and denominators to work with, your child can try out a number of different strategies to compare.
This is a great game for practicing adding decimals while also thinking about the place values involved. The object of the game is to create whole numbers and decimals in order to get close to or reach 500 without exceeding it.
This is a great game for practicing adding decimals while also thinking about the place values involved. The object of the game is to create whole numbers and decimals in order to get close to or reach 500 without exceeding it.
This is one of my favorite children’s books of all time. A group of sixteen people must solve a puzzle that Samuel W. Westing has left in his will in order to get the inheritance. Clever and funny, it is a great mystery book filled with lots of characters, as well as twists and turns…
This is one of my favorite children’s books of all time. A group of sixteen people must solve a puzzle that Samuel W. Westing has left in his will in order to get the inheritance. Clever and funny, it is a great mystery book filled with lots of characters, as well as twists and turns. Most meals are eaten at Shin Hoo’s restaurant in the apartment building, so you can have your child calculate food bills, tax, and tip using restaurant menus. There is also quite a bit on the stock market in this book. Turtle Wexler, the main character, thinks the clues she’s been given indicate that she should use the winnings to play the stock market. Learn more about the stock market with your child—how is stock information listed, calculate broker percentage fees. Turtle buys stock in SEA, buying 200 shares at $15.25 per share, so how much does she spend in total? On page 81, SEA is at $8.50 per share, so how much money would Turtle get if she sold her shares then? On page 145, Turtle reports how much money she has now after investing, so how much money did she make? While The Westing Game is my favorite of Raskin’s novels, if your child likes this one, it is definitely worth checking out some of her other smart and quirky children’s books.
Mrs. Gourd’s class heads to Mighty Mart to see math in action. Garth, an employee (and Math Man), gives them a tour of the store. Situations are presented involving fractions, percent, arithmetic, and money. Mice in the corner of each page express the situations using equations…
Mrs. Gourd’s class heads to Mighty Mart to see math in action. Garth, an employee (and Math Man), gives them a tour of the store. Situations are presented involving fractions, percent, arithmetic, and money. Mice in the corner of each page express the situations using equations.
The main character, a young girl, hears her teacher announce that everything can be thought of as a math problem, and suddenly feels she is under a math curse. She now sees everything in her life as a math problem…
The main character, a young girl, hears her teacher announce that everything can be thought of as a math problem, and suddenly feels she is under a math curse. She now sees everything in her life as a math problem. Some of the problems she encounters involve real math, like asking how many quarts are in a gallon, while others are there for humor like asking whether tuna fish + tuna fish = fournafish. This is a fun, energetic book filled with numerous references to different math concepts (measurement, multiplication, addition, subtraction, fractions, estimation, and data) that kids would enjoy as both a read-aloud and for revisiting on their own.
If you have not read any Patricia Polacco books, you should know that she is a fantastic author and illustrator, writing dozens of children’s books. Many of her books are personal narratives, and we do an author study on her at the beginning of the year in third grade. In this particular book, Patricia is a small child afraid of thunderstorms, with a big storm on the way…
If you have not read any Patricia Polacco books, you should know that she is a fantastic author and illustrator, writing dozens of children’s books. Many of her books are personal narratives, and we do an author study on her at the beginning of the year in third grade. In this particular book, Patricia is a small child afraid of thunderstorms, with a big storm on the way. Her grandmother tells her that it is perfect weather for thunder cake, but they must together collect all of the ingredients. As they collect the ingredients, her grandmother teaches her to count to determine the distance of the storm from them, with a lesson at the end on bravery as well. In the back of the book there is the recipe for thunder cake. You can use this recipe for multiplication and fractions (What if we needed to make two cakes? Three cakes?). For younger children, you can practice the counting technique taught in the book next time there is a thunder storm on the way.
Only one kid at camp gets to wear the grizzly costume in the end of camp parade, and several kids are vying for the spot. Using percentages and pie charts, the results of three polls as well as the final results are shown. It also reinforces throughout that 100% is the whole, in this case the whole camp…
Only one kid at camp gets to wear the grizzly costume in the end of camp parade, and several kids are vying for the spot. Using percentages and pie charts, the results of three polls as well as the final results are shown. It also reinforces throughout that 100% is the whole, in this case the whole camp.
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