Math Education Articles for Teachers - Page 4

Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, and/or Kwanzaa, the joy and festivities of the season will enliven your classroom by connecting math to the holidays.   For instance, probability may be studied while playing the traditional Hanukkah game “Spin the Dreidel.” Tokens are first evenly dist...

The ancient Egyptians used math for just about everything. They measured time, surveyed land, calculated the level of the Nile flooding, created a monetary system, and even collected taxes. Integrating mathematics and mythology, they were one of the first civilizations to estimate the number of d...

Christopher Columbus is sometimes a subject of controversy when studied in schools today.  However, often absent from any debate is an objective study of the mathematics that Columbus and other explorers of the era relied upon in their pursuits. To start with, Columbus needed to create a proposal...

Many students associate math with anxiety. So one of the many perks of the back-to-school season is to offer a fresh, positive approach to mathematics for students. It is the teacher’s duty to demonstrate that students can have a healthy relationship with math. Start anew with activities that con...

In August, I was fortunate enough to be invited to participate in the “2010 Numeracy and Financial Education Summer Institute,” sponsored by the FINRA Investor Education Foundation and Drexel University’s Math Forum. Math educators and financial experts met for three days to collaborate on ways t...

The absence of jarring school bells and clocks that dictate one’s every move is a refreshing, relaxing break that summer usually awards most teachers (as well as students). Calming summer sounds are accompanied by nature’s elements in all their glory, be they in lush, blooming gardens or at cool ...

Connect-the-dots is an easy puzzle that almost everyone fondly recalls from kindergarten. So for a non-threatening, enjoyable way to become familiar with the Cartesian coordinate grid, why not incorporate such a puzzle? Either the teacher or student may create some images made with connecting spe...

Sitting still all day in your seat taking notes can make anybody restless. Why not have students use walking as a way to engage them in experiments and activities to learn about math?  One activity might examine different strides for walking. Have students design an experiment to determine what ...

Scatter plots are graphs that can be used to analyze a set of data each having an “x” and a “y” coordinate on the Cartesian plane. At the middle school level, students might first be introduced to scatter plots while studying different kinds of graphs. They can compare these types of graphs to hi...

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a hand-held object is worth a million. Using manipulatives in mathematics can help bring conceptual ideas alive for students. Yet, because mathematics is traditionally taught more abstractly, relying on textbooks, paper, and pencil, teachers in middle schoo...

Analyzing geometric solids, such as prisms, pyramids, cylinders, cones, and spheres, is an engaging way to get students to begin thinking about geometry. Teachers can begin a lesson on geometric solids by bringing in everyday objects, such as cereal boxes, oatmeal cylinders, ice cream cones, and ...

Kids are constantly wondering how they measure up. But they also revel in the hands-on activity of measuring—especially measuring one another's height. Measuring each other's height can be a fun-filled and educational precursor to reviewing conversion equations for middle school or high school st...

Money is something that we are all fascinated by. Once a child knows that money buys the things they love, like candy and toys, they quickly have a desire to learn more about the subject. So, it doesn’t take much for teachers to get their students motivated. Children get a thrill from stacking up...

Fractions can be taught a variety of different ways. Most of the time teachers start fraction lessons with manipulatives to provide concrete examples, and then move on to more  abstract work. Children know how important it is to get it right when you are talking about equal parts. Take a cake,...

When Cinco de Mayo comes around each year teachers, like myself, pull out their folders with activities and information, and get ready to cover the annual holiday. Sometimes they might try to add something new, but most of the time they use what they already have. This year maybe a change is in o...