Lead younger students in action songs that focus on numbers and counting; encourage students to act out the characters and/or story of the songs. The Bus Songs website provides examples of number songs, such as "Five Little Monkeys," "The Number Rumba" and "This Old Man."
Produce an atmosphere of imagination and fantasy even in everyday math activities, states Author and Educator Mark Wahl. For example, he suggests personifying numbers, such as with the case of negative and positive integers. When you draw -20 on the board, you can say this numeral is really feeling down in the dumps, whereas +20 has just won the lottery! You can even ask each student to role play the mood of a particular integer.
Divide the students into groups to create mini skits based on a new math skill they have just learned. For example, Scruffy Plume Press recommends rewriting the story of "The Three Bears" to incorporate dialogue that explains the Pythagorean Theorem.
Lead the class in drama games, such as improv activities and warm-ups, and add a math skill to the game. For example, for the drama game "This is a...," children stand in a circle and pass objects around the circle. As they pass an item, they must chant the following to the beat:
Student A: "This is a ___."
Student B: "A what?"
Student A: "A ____."
Student B: "A what?"
Student A: "A _____."
Student B: "Oh a ____."
The game serves as an entertaining warm-up, because eventually there are many objects being passed around the circle at a time. Thus, a student may have to communicate to two students at once, while turning his head in both directions to receive and pass an object.
Incorporate math objects for this activity, such as geometric shapes or flashcards, to prompt students to say, "This is a triangle" or "This is a fraction."
Another improv game you can lead is to shout out commands, such as "Get in groups of three and form a triangle with your bodies." In this active game, students can review their knowledge of geometric shapes.
Facilitate a playwriting and performance activity for older students. Tell them to write a mystery-related plot where the audience has to answer three math riddles or word problems to help the characters solve the mystery.