Increase the depth of your class's fractional number sense with this number-ordering activity. Given four fractions, each with different numerators and denominators, young learners are asked to place them in order from smallest to...

There is never a bridge too far. Using common items, class members build bridges to span an opening. Pupils test different geometric shapes to determine which is the strongest. Learners use pennies to find the strength of their bridges...

Practice ratios and unit rates with tracking how long Lin took to ride her bike. Provided with different questions, your mathematicians can assemble their answers using a chart or setting up ratios. The activity is included in a set of...

A short, multiple choice assessment that determines your 3rd graders' ability to correctly compare fractions with like denominators. This quiz asks learners to compare two fractions using words, the greater than/less than symbols, and...

High schoolers know how to use technology, but they often need more training on how to use it effectively for educational or professional purposes. Try out the activities described here to get your pupils thinking about interesting ways...

Youngsters are up and moving in an exciting relay race designed to help them better understand where common foods fall on the MyPlate nutritional guidelines. Working in teams, they identify images of foods and name what food groups...

What did Jo write her stories with? How did the March sisters dress? A primary source set designed for Louisa May Alcott's Little Women prompts learners to look over images of household items and clothes from the 1860s before...

Can you visualize one billionth of a meter? It's not easy to understand the scale of a nanometer. Learners use a hands-on lesson to develop an understanding of the size of a nanometer in comparison to common objects. They walk away with...

Break out the balances for this primary grade instructional activity on weight measurement. Using common elementary school manipulatives like unifix or snap cubes, young mathematicians determine the weight of four different classroom...

Expand the the comparative language of young mathematicians with a hand-on weight measurement activity. Working independently or in pairs, children compare the weight of large wooden blocks to various other classroom objects, recording...

All too often stores give coupons for an item, but when you go into buy it, the item is on discount.  The store won’t take the coupon if the discount is used. So what do you do, use the coupon or take the discount? This activity...

Round and round and round she goes. Where she stops, nobody knows. This activity uses a common arcade game of chance, the spinning wheel, as a platform for computing expected values, interpreting results, and applying this knowledge to...

Teenagers love to think about driving and buying their first car. The intent of this resource is to create an equation for the list price of a car and add the appropriate state tax. Once your teens understand the calculation, ask them to...

How can you teach a person about technology and engineering if he has never been exposed to the tools and devices used to create and construct? Learners with visual impairments examine a number of common tools, such as hammers, wrenches,...

Shapes are everywhere in the world around us, from rectangular doors to the circular wheels of a car. The second lesson in this series opens the eyes of young mathematicians to this wonderful world of shapes as they search the classroom,...

Leaf toughness can add to its herbivore appeal. Learns design an experiment to quantify leaf toughness and then perform their procedures. They follow the experiment with a set of questions that ask them to think about how leaf toughness...

The amount of tax and tip on a restaurant bill is a common example used in percent problems. Here, learners only know the total amount paid, and they need to figure the itemized amounts. Solutions using a ratio table, using knowledge of...

This is a good Common Core question that relates inflation to operations with decimals and rounding. Young learners are asked to find out if an amount of money can purchase the same amount of movie tickets in 2012 as it did in 1987. They...

Adolescents love to shop, especially when an item is discounted. Here, shoppers only have a set amount of money to spend. Will they be able to make a purchase with the discount and tax added in? Percent discounts can be calculated...

From the apple on your desk and the coffee cup in your hand, to the cabinets along the classroom wall, basic three-dimensional shapes are found everywhere in the world around us. Introduce young mathematicians to the these common figures...

We take for granted globalization today, but its roots run deep within China centuries ago. Using texts from ancient Chinese historians and photographs of items showing growing Eurasian trade, scholars look at the traces of...

Challenge young mathematicians to buy classroom supplies by staying within the means of a $1,000 budget. The mathematical activity provides learners with the opportunity to decide what items from the supply list would benefit a class of...

The hunt is on! Send young mathematicians on a search for shapes in the first lesson of this two-part series. Each time a child finds a hidden shape, he draws it on his paper, and continues searching for the rest. Perform this activity...

How much do a pencil and sticker cost? Youngsters use a bar diagram to find the cost of a sticker that is twenty cents less than the cost of a pencil. Given the prices, learners must find the cost of the sticker in order to find the cost...