Recognizing and creating patterns is a foundational math skill. Patterns can be taught with seatwork, but students are more likely to be engaged and explore patterns if they can get up and move. Group early-elementary students into lines of four or five. Call out an action word they must use to demonstrate a pattern, such as "Jump." The first student starts a pattern by, for example, jumping with his legs landing wide apart. The second might jump and land on her tiptoes. The third student copies the first by jumping with his legs landing wide apart, and the pattern continues down the line. You also can have students play building games with patterns. One student builds a tower using blocks in a pattern or sets out a row of items in a pattern. A partner must identify the pattern and continue the construction.
Many children learn to count using their fingers as manipulatives. By counting objects, children are able to visualize an addition or subtraction problem. Play active math games that help children conceptualize addition and subtraction. Divide a class of early-elementary students into two teams. Call out an addition equation. Teams must demonstrate the equation by forming two smaller groups to illustrate the addends. Challenge the teams to correctly solve the equation first. Instruct children to lie on the floor as tally marks. Call out an addition or subtraction problem. See which team can show the correct answer first in human tally marks.
Children see shapes in their lives all the time: signs, books, doors, windows and tires, for example. Seeing shapes is one thing; correctly identifying them can be quite another. Turn shape identification lessons into games. Give early-elementary students a list of shapes to search for and identify in the classroom, school or playground. Play shape charades or Pictionary, or give each child clay to mold into the shape written on a card. Have students guess the shapes classmates are demonstrating. Divide a later-elementary class into groups of four or five students. Assign each group a shape to create by working together with their bodies. The rest of the class should try to correctly identify their shape.
Long division is a right of passage for later-elementary students. Correctly memorizing the steps in the process is often half the battle. Make it easier with a a sing-off. Groups of students must set to music the steps in the long division process: divide, multiply, subtract and bring down. Hold an "American Idol" style contest to choose the winner. Alternatively, create stations in the four corners of the classroom: Divide Domain, Multiply Menagerie, Subtract Track and Bring Down Town. Students jog through each station performing the corresponding step in a division problem on their paper until the problem is solved.