Summer Math Camp Archives - Math Geek Mama https://mathgeekmama.com/category/hands-on/summer-math-camp/ Fun and FREE Math Teaching Resources Sat, 05 Jun 2021 19:13:35 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.4.5 https://mathgeekmama.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/cropped-header-150x150.png Summer Math Camp Archives - Math Geek Mama https://mathgeekmama.com/category/hands-on/summer-math-camp/ 32 32 85743346 Summer Math Camp Week 6: Measurement! https://mathgeekmama.com/summer-math-camp-week-6-measurement/ https://mathgeekmama.com/summer-math-camp-week-6-measurement/#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2015 10:00:00 +0000 http://mathgeekmama.com/?p=1157 Get ready to explore measurement by getting outside to measure nature! Week 6 of our Summer Math Camp is all about measuring and graphing skills. Find more ideas below. *Please Note: This post contains affiliate links that support the work of this site. Read our full disclosure here.* I’m excited to share the LAST week...

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Get ready to explore measurement by getting outside to measure nature! Week 6 of our Summer Math Camp is all about measuring and graphing skills. Find more ideas below.

Summer Math Camp Week 6

*Please Note: This post contains affiliate links that support the work of this site. Read our full disclosure here.*

I’m excited to share the LAST week of our third grade Summer Math Camp with you all! It has been a great and fun Summer with some sweet girls, and I think we covered a great amount of math! 🙂

In case you missed it, be sure to check out the rest of this series:

Week 1: Operations with Large Numbers

Week 2: Multiplication

Week 3: Fractions

Week 4: Money

Week 5: Telling Time and Elapsed Time

This week, we focused on some important measurement concepts, including measuring to the inch, half inch and quarter inch, as well as understanding the difference between area and perimeter. To start, we went outside!

*If you want a fun resource for seeing math in nature, scroll to the bottom of this article for a FREE poster set!*

First, however, we spent some time looking closely at the ruler and discussing fractions as they relate to one whole inch. This was a great opportunity to review all the ways we have thought about fractions this Summer. First, we discussed fractions using fraction tiles. Then, we looked at fractions as they relate to one dollar. And last week, we looked at how fractions relate to time, as fractions of an hour.

If you’d like more resources for exploring fractions with rulers, check out my comprehensive lesson collection: Hands On Fractions with Rulers & Paper Folding.

After that, we went out to measure nature! I had them each explore my yard to find a handful of items to measure. Mostly this included sticks, leaves, flowers and seashells (no, we don’t live at the beach…we just have lots of shells sent from the beach, courtesy of MayMay and Papa 😉 )

Summer Math Camp Measurement_MathGeekMama2

They also found lots of other fun objects! It was a little distracting, and hard for me to keep up with everyone at first, because they were trying to measure items as they found them. So instead, I had them grab a handful of objects and all gather together to measure. This allowed me to help each of them when they had a question. 🙂

Summer Math Camp Measurement_MathGeekMama3

To help keep track of their measurements, I gave them each a recording sheet.

Summer Math Camp Measurement_MathGeekMama4

After completing the measurements, we used the data to graph the measurements. Even though there were some questions when measuring when it was not exactly one inch, they did a great job with their graphs!

Summer Math Camp Measurement_MathGeekMama5

If you would like to use this simple activity to take math outside and practice measuring, grab this free download! It includes the recording page as well as the graphing page!

{Click HERE to go to my shop and download the “Measuring Nature” Pages!}

After that fun measuring, it was on to perimeter and area! I wanted to make sure they understood the difference between these two big “math words,” so it was time for some hands-on exploration! When I first began to introduce the topic, no one could tell me anything about either of them, so we started at the beginning.

I used our kitchen table as an example, and explained that if I were hanging a banner around the outside of the table, that would be using and measuring the perimeter. If, however, I wanted to cover the table with a table cloth, that would be the area of the table. After talking about it, it was time to get to work! I made these simple practice pages to use with my base ten blocks. We simply placed blocks around each rectangle to determine the perimeter, then filled in the rectangle to determine the area.

Summer Math Camp Measurement_MathGeekMama6

We tried to focus on using what we know about rectangles to help solve the problem, rather than counting out every.single.block. So for example, when we counted the width, there were 6 blocks. Therefore, the side opposite would also equal 6. Then we talked about how to find the total number of blocks (or total measurement). They saw right away that we could simply add all the sides (so 6+6 = 12 and 8+8 = 16, therefore perimeter equals 12+18 = 28).

Determining area proved to be a little more difficult for them. After filling in the rectangle with blocks, they wanted to count them all. I encouraged them to find an easier way, and after some discussion, we noticed that there were 6 rows of 8 blocks, which is equal to 6×8 = 48.

We had already had a similar discussion when we worked on multiplication, but they didn’t make the connection right away. That’s ok though! It allowed me to see that there were still questions, and we had some good discussion!

{Click HERE to download the “Measuring Perimeter and Area” Pages!}

I also really wanted to take some time to explore some real life examples of using perimeter and area measurements, but we ran out of time. I had planned to take them back outside, though, and use our measuring tape to determine how much fencing we would need if we were to put a fence around our house.  But again, we ran out of time.

I did send them home with this fun activity from Blair Turner, however, that I hoped would extend the work that we started. It gives them a chance to be creative, practice finding area, as well as adding up multiple areas.

There are also some good measurement and data activities at K-5 Math Teaching Resources. These are aligned to common core, making it easy to find what you’re looking for.

For other fun, outdoor measurement activities, try:

This shoot and measure activity from Allison at No Time for Flashcards. It looks so fun!

Measuring Sidewalk Chalk Drawings from JDaniel4’s Mom

Or, if your kids really like to get outside to measure nature, check out this post which incorporates math, science and literature!

Exploring Math in Nature
I hope you found some useful ideas for your class or homeschool!

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Summer Math Camp Week 5: Time and Elapsed Time https://mathgeekmama.com/summer-math-camp-week-5-time-and-elapsed-time/ https://mathgeekmama.com/summer-math-camp-week-5-time-and-elapsed-time/#comments Mon, 13 Jul 2015 10:00:09 +0000 http://mathgeekmama.com/?p=1102 Welcome to week 5 of Summer Math Camp here at Math Geek Mama! This week we worked on time problems! Telling time, adding and subtracting time, and figuring out elapsed time! It was so fun! If you’ve missed the rest of this series, check out each week so far {there are FREE resources each week!}:...

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Summer Math Camp Week 5

Welcome to week 5 of Summer Math Camp here at Math Geek Mama! This week we worked on time problems! Telling time, adding and subtracting time, and figuring out elapsed time! It was so fun!

If you’ve missed the rest of this series, check out each week so far {there are FREE resources each week!}:

Week 1: Operations with Large Numbers-Comparing, Rounding, Adding and Subtracting

Week 2: Exploring the Meaning of Multiplication and Solving Problems involving Multiplication

Week 3: Understanding Fractions and Adding and Subtracting Fractions

Week 4: Exploring Real Life Math Using Money

By third grade, students are expected to know how to tell time proficiently, so you may be wondering why we spent an entire lesson on telling time. Well, using time and solving problems involving time is an extremely important real life math concept, and will be a topic that is used and explored in many math classes to come. So it’s pretty important for kids to master it!

For third graders, according to the common core standards, students should be able to:

“Tell and write time to the nearest minute and measure time intervals in minutes. Solve word problems involving addition and subtraction of time intervals in minutes, e.g., by representing the problem on a number line diagram.”

There’s a lot of ideas and concepts to explore in that one standard, so this is what I based our entire lesson on. We had a lot of fun, and I hope you find some useful ideas as well!

I was really excited to get the girls up and moving to practice and review telling time, so I had planned to start by making hula hoop clocks and letting them race to “set the time” when I called it out. Unfortunately, a couple girls couldn’t join us this week, so I decided to wait on that one! 🙂

Instead, we started with a fun review using these BINGO boards from The Measured Mom!

free-telling-time-games-for-K-21-590x590

We used the hardest level to play which included time to the hour, half hour and quarter hour. I used some game pieces from a board game to make our way around the outside of the board, and pennies for bingo markers, and it worked great!

After a basic review of time and how a clock works (how many minutes in an hour, how we count minutes around the clock, etc.) it was time to move on to harder problems.

I liked the idea of this tv guide activity (one of the worksheets on this page) for practicing elapsed time, but decided that since it is Summer, it would be more fun to create a schedule for the perfect Summer day!

Elapsed Time Free Practice Page_Math Geek Mama

We had fun thinking of the best ways to spend Summer days (like swimming, going to the movies, eating yummy treats), and adding them to the chart. After choosing a start time and an end time, we figured out how to determine the total duration by using a number line.

We would start by counting the hours. For example, if I go swimming from 9 until 12:30, we would count from 9 to 10, then 10 to 11, and 11 to 12, and write 1 hour over each of those. Then from 12 to 12:30 we would write 30 minutes. Finally, we would add the hours and minutes, giving a duration of 3 hours and 30 minutes. To see some examples of similar problems written out, check out this great FREE resource from Teacher Treasures.

This was also a good opportunity to discuss what an hour means (a full sixty minutes, or once around the clock). So if a start time was not on the hour, say, start at 9:20, one hour would be all the way around the clock to 10:20.

Perfect Summer Day Elapsed Time Activity

{Click HERE to go to my shop and download the “Perfect Summer Day” Activity!}

After completing this, I wanted to work on some word problems that would involve not only reviewing adding and subtracting time, but also “time words” such as quarter after, half past, etc. To have a chance to get up and move some (and hopefully make word problems a little more fun), I made a “Clock Hunt.”

I created a set of questions cards that ended with some form of “What time is it?” and once solved, the girls would have to go and find the clock with the correct time somewhere around the room.

Time Word Problems Solve and Search FREE2_Math Geek Mama

Because I made this for a small group, there are only 8 question cards (4 requiring adding time and 4 requiring subtracting time). But if you wanted to use this with a class, you could simply print multiple copies, and some students would just have the same question. Or you could use it as a math center matching activity, or something for early finishers to work on (again, just as a matching activity, not a “clock hunt”).

Time Word Problems Solve and Search Clocks FREE_Math Geek Mama

{Click HERE to download the “What Time Is It?” Clock Hunt Activity!}

I would suggest laminating the clocks for multiple uses, but I did not laminate the question cards. I wanted them to be able to write on them to work out the answer, if they wanted.

Overall, I thought this went great, and provided what was apparently a much needed review of “time words.” I was not anticipating that to be the challenge here, but it was! And it gave us the opportunity to look at yet another example of using fractions! To help explain the terms, I drew a clock and drew a line down the middle (meaning half). Therefore, half past 6 is 6:30 (halfway through the hour). Then I drew a line again to cut the clock into quarters, and we talked about how many minutes were in each quarter, etc.

So I think we had some good review and wonderful math discussions this week!

Elapsed Time Bundle Cover

Want a variety of fun elapsed time activities and challenges all in one download? This resource bundle includes a complete set of “My Perfect Day” activities (all 4 seasons), the clock hunt PLUS task cards and a board game! That’s 40+ elapsed time problems for only $3!

>>Get the complete Elapsed Time Resource Bundle!<<

If you are looking for more practice with writing and telling time, check out this set of free worksheets:

Time for Spring Title

Spring-themed telling time worksheets

Or check out this page from Have Fun Teaching, which includes a variety of free telling time activities!

And if you would like an online resource to practice time, here’s a list of 11 free online telling time games.

Or if you’re like me, and enjoy a good ol’ fashioned board game, try playing Zingo!

I hope you find something useful and are able to make learning and telling time FUN! 🙂

*Please Note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links and help support the work of this site. Thanks for understanding! Feel free to read our full disclosure here.*

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Summer Math Camp: All About Money! https://mathgeekmama.com/summer-math-camp-all-about-money/ https://mathgeekmama.com/summer-math-camp-all-about-money/#comments Mon, 06 Jul 2015 10:00:12 +0000 http://mathgeekmama.com/?p=1054 I’m so excited to bring you the next part in my Summer Math Camp series! This week we worked on all things money: counting coins, adding money, making change, and even considered fractions of a dollar!  If you’ve missed the rest of this series so far, we started with operations with large numbers, then worked...

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Summer Math Camp Week 4

I’m so excited to bring you the next part in my Summer Math Camp series! This week we worked on all things money: counting coins, adding money, making change, and even considered fractions of a dollar! 

If you’ve missed the rest of this series so far, we started with operations with large numbers, then worked on understanding multiplication in week 2, then discussed fractions and equivalent fractions in week 3! Be sure to check out those as well, because they are packed with FREE downloads and teaching ideas!

I like to have something simple and self explanatory for them to start with to help ease into it. It is summer, after all, and they’re not usually in “school mode” when they arrive, haha! So this week, I had these money puzzles out and they worked hard to get them all done!

Summer Math Camp_Money Puzzles

Once they felt comfortable counting up coins and handling money, it was time to put it to use! I wanted to make sure they understood why we need to add and subtract money, rather than just giving them a worksheet full of problems, so we treated ourselves to the Cozy Corner Bakery!

Cozy Corner Bakery Money Activity Menu

I passed out a handful of play money to each girl (it came out to between $3.50 and $4 for each of them) and they took turns ordering treats at the bakery. Though this activity helped them practice numerous skills, it was also immensely practical because the girl ordering had to make sure she had enough money for what she wanted to buy.

Then, the one who took the order would fill out a receipt for the purchase and put her math skills to work!

Cozy Corner Bakery Money Activity Receipts

We discussed how finding the total required adding, while figuring out the change due would require subtraction.

They took turns being the customer and the cashier until they no longer had enough money to purchase anything. Then we enjoyed a cookie, because it’s not really fair to go to the bakery and not actually enjoy any baked goods! 😉

To use this activity, all I did was print the menu and laminate it (so I can use it again with my own kids), then print the receipts and cut them out. This download includes 1 page of 6 receipts, but you could print multiple copies to have a class set.

{Click HERE to go to my shop and  download the Cozy Corner Bakery Activity Set!}

Another great thing about this activity is that it can be used over and over with different amounts of starting money, purchasing different items, paying with larger bills, etc.

After having some fun “at the bakery” (and enjoying a yummy snack break!), I wanted to use the opportunity to go back to fractions and hopefully help them think about it a different way. I had tried to explain the meaning of the numerator versus the denominator, but they still seemed to struggle at the end of our time last week.

So we used one dollar as our “whole” and looked at different ways we can break a dollar into equal parts. I gave each of them this worksheet:

Money Fractions

and we worked through it together, one at a time. We talked about how many of each coin we need to make a dollar. For example, number one shows one quarter, which equals 25 cents, but four quarters equals a dollar. So we lined up four quarters and discussed how the numerator would be one (because we only have one quarter) but the denominator would be four (because it takes four quarters to make a dollar). Then we went back to the original problem and restated it as “25 cents is equal to 1/4 of a dollar.” We then did the same for each of the problems.

After we finished the page, we talked about how the amount is what’s important, not which coins we have. For example, if you have two dimes and a nickel, it’s still 25 cents, so you still have 1/4 of a dollar.

I also wanted to use money to review rounding (which we worked on in week one) and estimating, but we ran out of time. I was planning to give them each a handful of change, let them round it to the nearest ten cents, then estimate the fraction of a dollar. Oh well, maybe we’ll get to this next week! 🙂

{Click HERE to download the Money Fractions Worksheet pages!}

Using money is a great way to practice and review many different math skills in a real life context. It’s more meaningful for kids because they will have to know how to correctly handle money in the real world, and it’s more fun because you can easily turn it into a game!

And of course, if you want yet another way to talk about money with your kids, try reading a fun math story! I recently discovered some excellent teaching resources from Take Charge America that try to teach personal finance lessons to kids at an early age. They use math stories as the basis of the lessons for grades 1-5, and the best part? They are all free! There are ten lessons for each grade, with about 3 different activities to go along with each lesson. I plan to use some of the first grade lessons with my kids this year! Check out all their free personal finance teaching resources here.

Summer Math Camp Week 4_Money

Overall, I thought things went well this week, and I look forward to a few more weeks of “math camp” before school starts again! 🙂

*Please Note: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links and help support the work of this site. Thanks for understanding! Feel free to read our full disclosure here.*

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Summer Math Camp Week 3: Fractions! https://mathgeekmama.com/summer-math-camp-week-3-fractions/ https://mathgeekmama.com/summer-math-camp-week-3-fractions/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2015 09:00:48 +0000 http://mathgeekmama.com/?p=973 Welcome to week 3 of my Summer Math Camp! I have *loved* doing math and playing fun games with these girls and sharing our learning experiences with you! In case you’ve missed it, the first week we focused on operations with large numbers, including adding, subtracting, comparing and rounding. Last week, we worked on building...

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Summer Math Camp Week 3

Welcome to week 3 of my Summer Math Camp! I have *loved* doing math and playing fun games with these girls and sharing our learning experiences with you! In case you’ve missed it, the first week we focused on operations with large numbers, including adding, subtracting, comparing and rounding. Last week, we worked on building a conceptual understanding of multiplication, as well as word problems involving multiplication.

This week? Fractions! Honestly, my week last week was crazy and I did not have as much time to get myself organized, yet I still ended up with more plans than we had time for, haha!

I read over the third grade standards regarding fractions to get an idea of what they should know, but I really had no idea what to expect in terms of prior knowledge. So I had a pretty loose plan this week so that I could focus on meeting them where they are.

They had so much fun with these place value puzzles, I let them try out these fraction puzzles to ease into things and begin to visualize fractions.

After having some fun with those and starting the discussion, I wanted to create some fractions and try and place them on a number line so we could discuss, “what is a fraction, and what do all these numbers mean?” To create some fractions, I let each girl roll two giant foam dice (similar to these) and they used the two numbers to write down their fraction.

Summer Math Camp Week 3_4

Once we had 3 fractions, we began to discuss where to place them on the number line. The first fraction we discussed was 2/4 and the immediate response when I asked if it was bigger or smaller than 1 was bigger. When I said, “Why? How do you know?” they all agreed: “Because the numbers are bigger than one.”

Ok. Time to back up. I got out my fraction squares (though I really prefer these fraction tiles, but I don’t have any yet) and we used them to compare 1 whole square with two fourths pieces and saw that it is indeed smaller. We then compared that to the one half piece, and saw that they were equal! Then we went back to the number line and they understood that 2/4 would be right in the middle of 0 and 1. We then continued to do this with each of the fractions, using 1/2 as a benchmark on the number line.

Summer Math Camp Week 3_2

We also spent time (with pretty much every fraction we looked at) discussing the meaning of the numerator and denominator in relation to the fraction square pieces, much like in this post at Math Coach’s corner.

Then they were so excited about doing multiplication with skittles, they BEGGED to do fractions with skittles too! This was not part of the plan, but why not, right?? This provided yet another discussion of the meaning of the numerator and denominator in context!


Looking for more Skittles math FUN for grades 3-5? Check out the complete Candy Math Collection HERE, which covers fractions with Skittles, chocolate bars and so.much.more.


So I got out my giant bag of skittles (yes, it is huge. Entirely too many skittles. We may find a way to use them in each of our remaining weeks, ha!), I gave each girl 6, and told them to write a fraction to represent a portion of their skittles.

They immediately started throwing out random fractions, so I got 6 skittles to explain my thinking. I had 4 yellow skittles, so I wrote the fraction 4/6. I asked them if they saw where I got those numbers and what they mean, and they were still at a loss.

As I explained that the 4 represents 4 yellow skittles, and the 6 represents the total number of skittles, I pointed them back to the fraction tiles. The denominator tells us the total number of equal parts the whole is broken into. We made several fractions with our skittles as well and I continued to explain each as, “4 out of 6 skittles are red,” or “3/6 of the skittles are green.”

Summer Math Camp Week 3_3

Once we had eaten all of the skittles, they were ready to move on. The last thing I wanted to review with them was adding and subtracting fractions (with common denominators) and continue to practice comparing. I made this simple game and they had a blast!

Fraction Race Game_Add Subtract and Compare

Simply print the game board and question cards, laminate themcut out the cards, and you’re ready to play! There are 30 game cards that include adding, subtracting and comparing fractions.

{Click HERE to go to my shop and  download the FREE Fraction Game!}

There was not much trouble with adding, except to review what happens to the denominator. In order to add 3/10 + 5/10, we again pulled out tenths fraction tiles and added them to see that we still have tenths pieces, so no need to add the denominator values together.

We also pulled out the tiles anytime there was a comparing question (and continued to use 1/2 as a benchmark), as well as when one of them got the question 1-1/3. I reminded them of “regrouping” in subtraction, and showed them how to rewrite 1 whole as 3 thirds (3/3). Then we “took away” 1 of the tiles and saw that 2/3 remained.

Summer Math Camp Week 3_5

To help them continue to work on visualizing fractions and equivalent fractions, I sent them home with this freebie from Jan Lindley.

Overall, I felt like they did a great job, and hopefully started to get a better grasp of what fractions represent, rather than simply memorizing procedures.

If you’d like more resources for exploring fractions, check out this free set of activities to go along with the book “The Lion’s Share.”  Want more fun books on fractions? Try one of these:

Whole-y Cow!: Fractions Are Fun by Taryn Souders

Full House: An Invitation to Fractions by Dayle Ann Dodds

Funny & Fabulous Fraction Stories: 30 Reproducible Math Tales and Problems to Reinforce Important Fraction Skills by Dan Greenburg

Go, Fractions!  (a math reader about fractions and soccer) by Judith Stamper

Fraction Action by Loreen Leedy

Jump, Kangaroo, Jump! by Stuart Murphy

And if you have older students who are working on more advanced problems with fractions and decimals, I have a whole page of practice worksheets that you may find useful (these are appropriate for grades 6-7).

Have fun teaching and exploring fractions with your students!

*Please Note: This post contains affiliate links that help support the work of this site. Thanks for understanding! Feel free to read our full disclosure here.*

Hands On Fraction Ad Click Here

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Summer Math Camp: Multiplication! https://mathgeekmama.com/summer-math-camp-week-2-multiplication/ https://mathgeekmama.com/summer-math-camp-week-2-multiplication/#comments Mon, 15 Jun 2015 10:00:36 +0000 http://mathgeekmama.com/?p=934 I am SO excited to share with you week two of my Summer Math Camp! I am focusing on reinforcing and practicing important third grade math skills, and sharing all the details and freebies with you! Here’s everything we started with in week one, in case you missed it. Hopefully the ideas and resources in...

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I am SO excited to share with you week two of my Summer Math Camp! I am focusing on reinforcing and practicing important third grade math skills, and sharing all the details and freebies with you! Here’s everything we started with in week one, in case you missed it. Hopefully the ideas and resources in this post will be helpful for multiplication for 3rd grade, or some easy ways to review if you teach 4th or 5th grade.

This post has some fun and unique ideas for exploring multiplication for third grade!

This week I wanted to focus on multiplication, because it is a MAJOR piece of the third grade curriculum, and something that a lot of kids struggle with.

My goal, however, was not to spend our time drilling math facts or teaching them “tricks” to memorize them. While I do recognize that it is helpful to have multiplication facts memorized for easier and more fluent computation down the road, I think it is much MORE important that kids have a conceptual understanding of what multiplication is so that they can still solve problems, even if they don’t remember a particular fact.

If you’re teaching multiplication for 3rd grade, hopefully this post will give you some great ideas for looking at multiple representations and trying some hands on activities.

So the first representation of multiplication we looked at was groups of equal parts. (For example, 4 groups of 6 objects is equivalent to 4×6). To help visualize this, we used my favorite math manipulative: candy!

The purpose of this first activity was not to simply model multiplication, however. I wanted to {hopefully} build a foundation for factoring and divisibility rules. To do this, I gave them each a handful of skittles (and I would often count them to make sure it was a number that would work easily) .

Then, they had to try and divide it into equal parts. If they split them into piles of three, for example, and it didn’t work out into equal piles, they had to try a different number (and thus, their number was not divisible by three). Once they found equal piles, they would write the appropriate multiplication sentence on their paper.

This post has some fun and unique ideas for exploring multiplication for third grade!

It was great to see them realize they could make different groupings with the same number of skittles. For example, one girl had 24 skittles, so she was able to make 8 groups of 3 and 6 groups of 4, etc. It was also a great way to discuss the commutative property and show that if they could make 8 equal groups of 3, then they could also make 3 equal groups of 8.

Once they had a list of multiplication facts that they had made and written themselves, it was time to move on to another representation of multiplication–area (or in this case, the total number of blocks).

After discussing it and showing them how to find the total number of “blocks,” I let them color their answers on these multiplication pages.

Color the Multiplication Answer

If you would like to download these free pages, there is blank page because my girls used the multiplication problems they had written themselves. But in the download, there are also two pages that have problems written, so students can color the blocks and write the correct answer.

{Click HERE to go to my shop and  download the “Color the Multiplication” Pages!}

This post has some fun and unique ideas for exploring multiplication for third grade!

After reviewing multiplication, I wanted to take some time to work on word problems, so I could help them see how these different representations can be used and applied. I also wanted to help them practice problem solving strategies, especially drawing a picture (which was particularly useful for these problems). If you’d like these problems, you can download them below! (They require multiplication and then subtraction to solve.)

Two Step Word Problems

{Click HERE to download the Multiplication Word Problem Pages!}

We didn’t do all of the word problems because I wanted to end with a game! To help review various representations of multiplication and hopefully help them see these as equivalent, we played this great, free game from Let’s Play Math!

And I plan to play this again next week as a review before we move on to our new concept! 🙂

All of these resources have been updated and included in my HUGE Introduction to Multiplication Lesson Bundle! Everything you need to help students build a strong foundation and work towards multiplication fact fluency!

{Click HERE to get the entire Introduction to Multiplication Lesson Bundle!}

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Summer Math Camp: Week 1 https://mathgeekmama.com/summer-math-camp-week-1/ https://mathgeekmama.com/summer-math-camp-week-1/#comments Mon, 08 Jun 2015 11:00:37 +0000 http://mathgeekmama.com/?p=885 I’m so excited to share with you a really fun event that I’m hosting at my house this summer! I’m teaching and reviewing some important third grade math skills to a wonderfully sweet group of girls, and I want to share my plans, games and ideas with you! We are meeting for one hour each...

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Summer Math Camp1

I’m so excited to share with you a really fun event that I’m hosting at my house this summer! I’m teaching and reviewing some important third grade math skills to a wonderfully sweet group of girls, and I want to share my plans, games and ideas with you!

We are meeting for one hour each week, so it’s not a huge time commitment, but I hope to cover as much third grade math as we can over the summer to help them keep up their skills, and maybe better internalize some of the concepts that they struggled with during the school year.

And even though we do have to work on some difficult math concepts, and my goal is to help them see their mistakes and learn from them, it is summer vacation, so I’m all about trying to make it FUN!

My goal is to have a set skill that we focus on each week, and then build on that as the summer goes on, rather than doing a hodge podge of random problems and games. I want to help them focus on conceptual understanding, rather than just practicing lots and lots of math problems each week. I’m basing our focus areas on third grade common core standards, but these activities could work with grades 2nd-4th, depending on their level and ability.

Week One Focus:

Large Numbers: Place value, comparing, rounding, adding and subtracting

Warm Up– To help the girls settle in and review place value, I let them work on these expanded number puzzles. I printed and laminated them before cutting them out, and I was excited to see that they LOVED them!

Summer Math Camp Week 1

Then we moved on to a simple place value game that I created that allowed them to compare large numbers and then round to the tens and hundreds place. We were able to cover so much math in such a simple game!

All you need is a deck of playing cards (remove face cards and tens; we used “ace” as zero), and this handy dandy printable (again, I laminated these):

Place Value Mat

{Click HERE to go to my shop and download the FREE Place Value Mat!}

To Play:

After decided who would choose first, the girls went around the circle drawing a card from the deck. Each time they drew a card, they had to place it in on of the spaces on their mat, and then it could not be moved. So, if they drew a high number and placed it in the tens place, and then drew a low number, they could not switch them.

The goal is to make the largest number possible, so they had to think about where to place each card that might make the most sense.

Once they “built” their number, they had to round it to the tens and hundreds place on their mat using a dry erase marker.

Once everyone had their number and finished rounding, they would line them up and compare. They had to decide and agree on who had the largest number and explain why, and then that person would receive a point.

Then I checked their rounding, and each time they rounded correctly, they would also receive a point. (Therefore, the most points they could receive in a round was 3, but they could always get 2 if they rounded correctly.)

After calculating points, we erased the board, shuffled the cards and played another round!

To Win:

After several rounds, the player with the most points wins!

I was surprised to find that none of the girls had any knowledge of rounding, so we had to stop and review after the first round. But that was ok! It was good for me to see what they do and do not know, and now I know to come back to that to review at some point later this summer.

After the place value game, it was time to move on to adding and subtracting, which the girls were very excited about, as they all felt very confident! I created another game to review these skills, but first wanted to make sure they understood subtraction with “borrowing” or “regrouping.”

So we pulled out some base ten blocks, and built numbers to review subtraction! I explained in a way similar to how Becky did here with legos. (In the past, I have also used dimes and pennies to model subtraction with borrowing, and that seemed to work well also!). If you would like the chart I used to practice, you can download it here:

{FREE Place Value Chart to the thousands!}

Even though the girls were confident subtracting when they had to “borrow” or “regroup” once, it was much more of a challenge when they were dealing with large numbers and had to do so multiple times in one problem.

If your child struggles with this as well, help them to think through each step in a similar way: one thousand = ten hundreds, and one hundred = ten tens, so what are you adding to the hundreds or tens when you “borrow,” etc.? The concept is the same, but it can get confusing for young learners when the numbers are so big.

Again, this is why we started by reviewing place value, and thinking about numbers in their expanded form. So when it’s time to subtract the following: 4123 – 568, they could think about the first number as 4000 + 100 + 20 + 3 to help them work through the “borrowing” and what’s really happening when they change the 4 in the thousands place to a 3.

Summer Math Camp Week1 2

We then ended with what I thought was a fun game to continue honing those addition and subtraction skills, which I will share with you tomorrow! 🙂

So be sure to check back, because I will explain the details of the game, as well as a free printable game board!

I hope you’re having a great summer so far, and can use some of these ideas or others that I’ve posted to help your kids keep up with math over the summer!

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