Divide a class of elementary students into partnerships. Give each team a deck of playing cards. Tell the students to remove the joker. Aces will represent one. Make the jacks represent 11, queens represent 12 and kings represent 13 for a more challenging level of play. Deal the entire deck between the two players. Players will keep their cards upside-down. Each player will turn over the top two cards in their deck. Instruct early elementary students to add the two numbers shown. Instruct later elementary students to multiply the two numbers shown. The player with the higher sum or product will keep all the cards. If the sum or product is the same, each player will lay two more cards and multiply or add the numbers. The player with the higher sum or products will keep all the cards. Play will continue until one player holds all the cards.
Pass out grid paper with 1-inch squares to upper elementary students. Instruct students to outline five squares across and five squares down, creating a Bingo card. Pass out markers or chips to each student. Have students choose and write five numbers between 1 and 15 for the first column. Write five numbers between 16 and 30 for the second, 31-50 for the third, 51-70 for the fourth and 71-100 for the fifth. Take the joker and face cards out of a deck of playing cards. Consider the ace to be a one. Pick up the top two cards, multiply the numbers together and call out the answer. Students will place a marker if their card has the correct answer. Set the playing cards out to fact check with the winner. Play will continue until one student has five markers in a row on her card. Ask the student to call out the answers in the winning row. Check to ensure the factors were called. Clear the cards and continue play to practice more multiplication.
Transparent mirrors can help students explore with symmetry and symmetrical figures. Purchase a set of transparent mirrors from a teacher supply store or website. Allow students time to explore with the mirrors. Instruct students to draw a design on blank paper and use the mirror to create its reflection. Have students find pictures they like to recreate using the mirror.
Pass out a blank sheet of paper to each elementary student. Demonstrate for the students how to make their lily pad pond. Draw a dot at the top of the paper. Draw two dots under the previous dot making the shape of a triangle. Draw three more dots under the two previous dots, enlarging the triangle. Continue adding rows of dots increasing the number of dots by one for each row. Stop adding rows when you have reached the row of nine dots. Instruct students to cover all but one of the dots, or "lily pads", with chips or markers. Model how to pick up one chip, or "frog", jump over another and land on an empty dot. Remove the chip that was jumped over, which will create another empty dot. Continue finding chips that can jump over others and land on empty dots until there are no chips next to each other to jump. Encourage the students to use strategies that aim for the student to have as few chips left over as possible.