Elementary and Middle School Fun Stuff

Don’t let your kids grow up thinking that “math” means workbook pages! Wise parents make time to pay with math.

Aunty Math: Math Challenges for K–5 Learners: Story problem challenges, tips on problem solving, and advice for the parent or teacher.

Bedtime Math: A daily math problem (with answers) at three levels of difficulty, approximately preschool to upper-elementary level.

Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land: The classic math cartoon from Walt Disney, now free on YouTube.

DragonBox Algebra: A playful math app that uses puzzles to teach the basic principles of solving simple (linear) equations. See also DragonBox Elements for geometry.

Egyptian Math: Could you survive in the world of Egyptian numerals and mathematics?

Eratosthenes’ Sieve: Click on any number, and all of its multiples (except the number itself) will disappear from the chart.

Fibonacci Numbers and Nature: Find out all about his famous rabbits, and about honeybees, seashells, pinecones, and more.

Graph Mole and Line Gem: Two coordinate graphing. games by Sulan Dun.

Head Hunters Game: A bloody fun game for the Viking in all of us. If you enjoy that one, try the other math tricks and games at Murderous Maths.

Logic-Grid Brain Teasers: I love logic grid problems, and Braingle offers thirty-four pages of them. Have fun. See also: Math Brain Teasers.

Math Cats: Math explorations, crafts, homemade manipulatives, and lots of fun.

Math Playground: My favorite site for a variety of math games that make students think—not just number drill.

Math Wire: Activities and games for elementary students by Terry Kawas. Check out the Hundred Chart Logic Puzzles.

MegaPenny Project: How many does it take to pile up a ton of pennies?

Multiplication, An Adventure in Number Sense: Explore the multiplication table and discover some interesting things about how numbers work.

Multiplication Models: How many different ways can you think of to look at multiplication?

One is one … or is it?: One bag of apples, one apple, one slice of apple — which of these is one unit? Video by Christopher Danielson.

Professor Pig’s Magic Math: Cartoons, hands-on games, and mental math practice‌—‌these pdf lessons are excellent to help young students understand numbers, not just memorize facts.

Scratch: A programming language that makes it easy for students to create interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art.

Suzanne’s Math Lessons: Activities and projects for upper-elementary and middle school, collected by Suzanne Alejandre.

Taxicab Treasure Hunt: A game based on the non-Euclidean geometry of city streets.

Thinking Blocks: Learn to solve word problems by modeling them with interactive virtual blocks. A visual approach to thinking things through.

ThinkQuest History of Mathematics: Brief overview of math history, with biographies of influential mathematicians and short online quizzes.

Who Was Fibonacci?: “A brief biographical sketch of Fibonacci, his life, times and mathematical achievements.”

Wuzzit Trouble: A fun and challenging app that combines an adventure game with mathematical thinking skills, produced by Stanford mathematician Keith Devlin and friends.