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Engineering is a key component of many STEM classes, but it can be an intimidating subject to teach for parents and teachers not primarily trained in the field. The good news is kids are often drawn to building and taking things apart, skills that can be nurtured with simple engineering activities. We’ve gathered a list of 101 of our favorite hands-on activities that will get kids excited about the engineering design process. With some basic materials, and a bit of curiosity, kids will be designing, creating, testing, and improving solutions to engineering problems in no time!

Transportation

Whether your kids like boats that float or cars that go, these building activities will surely be a hit with those fascinated by forms of transportation.

Storytime STEAM with Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! Preschool Steam
How to Make a Recycled Balloon Car Left Brain Craft Brain
Square Wheels Exploratorium
Rubber Band Car DIY Figment Creative Labs
Absorb the Shock! Scientific American
Propeller-Powered Zipline Racers Digital Harbor Foundation
Straw Boats: Engineering Challenge for Kids The Science Kiddo
Making Simple Boats that Float Teach Preschool
Build a Paddle Boat Rookie Parenting
Cork Raft Building Challenge for Kids Kitchen Counter Chronicles
Simple Cardboard Airplane Craft for Kids Hands On: As We Grow
Egg Crate Airplane Engineering Project Schooling Active Monkeys
Design a Submarine Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago

Food Fun

From marshmallows to spaghetti, using food can make for affordable and fun engineering projects.

One Minute Marshmallow Engineering Challenge Steam Powered Family
Family Movie Night & S’mores STEM Challenge No Time For Flash Cards
Leaning Tower of Pasta TeachEngineering
How Strong is Spaghetti? Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls
Candy House – Making a Stable Structure Science Sparks
Design Challenge with Sticks, Clay, and a Mandarin TinkerLab
Engineering with Food: Preschool STEM My Mundane & Miraculous Life
Engineer a Gumdrop Structure Creative Child
Edible Rovers eGFI

Back to Nature

Get kids out of the house or classroom and into nature with these activities perfectly suited for the outdoors.

Outdoor Engineering: Building Stick Forts Little Bins Little Hands
Playground Sized DIY Marble Run Babble Dabble Do
Log Pile House Building Challenge Inspiration Laboratories
How to Make a Homemade Water Wall for Kids Happy Hooligans
Mudbrick Houses Imagine Childhood
Speedy Shelter PBS Kids Design Squad Global
Build a Shelter from the Sun and Test it with UV-Sensitive Beads Buggy and Buddy
Design A Seed Engineering Challenge Share it! Science News
Backyard Pulley an Engineering Challenge for Kids Kids STEAM Lab
DIY Solar Oven The Craft Train
Backyard Railroad Engineering: Outdoor STEM Challenge for Kids Adventure in a Box

Robots Rock

Be sure to ask kids what problems their robots will solve before they design, build, and test these marvelous bots.

Build Your Own Robot Arm TryEngineering
Robo Arm PBS Kids Design Squad Global
Squishy Circuit Robot: Electrical Engineering Design Challenge Lemon Lime Adventures
Homemade Spinning Brushbot Research Parent
Upcycled Toy Car Marker Bots Left Brain Craft Brain
How to Make a Minion Scribble Bot Science Sparks
Drawing Robot: Learn How to Create Robot Art Rosie Research
Build Your Own Underwater Robot Science Buddies
Engineer a Bee eGFI

Simple Things

Sometimes the simplest things can make for the best engineering projects. Challenge kids to design and build with simple materials ranging from cups to straws to newspapers.

Newspaper Engineering Challenge for Kids The Educators’ Spin On It
100 Cup Challenge Busy Kids Happy Mom
Building With Straws: A STEM Activity Kids Activities Blog
Straw Geodesic Dome Babble Dabble Do
Building a Straw House Deceptively Educational
Fun and Easy Straw Rocket STEM Activity for Toddlers Engineering Emily
DIY Magnetic Marble Run Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls
How to Make an Indoor Boomerang What We Do All Day
Indoor Snowball Structures: Engineering for Little Hands One Time Through
How to Make a Bubble Blower Machine Teach Beside Me
Balancing Dinosaur STEAM Activity for Kids Rainy Day Mum
DIY Marble Mazes for Preschool Kids Coffee Cups and Crayons
Build a Cardboard Scissor Lift Scientific American
C is for Catapult! Go Science Kids
How to Build the Eiffel Tower: An Engineering Project for Kids KC Edventures
How to Make Homemade Fidget Spinner STEM Little Explorers
3D Shapes and Shapes Out of Straws and Pipe Cleaners Meaningful Mama
Spider Web Construction Rainy Day Mum
Building Toothpick Bridges Eva Varga

Teaching Tip: Turn a simple engineering activity into a lesson plan by having students follow the engineering design process. Ask students to:

1. Define the problem
2. Do background research
3. Brainstorm and select a potential solution
4. Create a prototype
5. Test and evaluate the prototype
6. Improve upon the prototype
7. Communicate the results

Get started with this engineering design challenge printable.

Holiday and Seasonal

Incorporate engineering into your lessons with these activities themed around holidays and the seasons.

Christmas Engineering Activity for Kids Fun-A-Day
Gingerbread Steam Project The Homeschool Scientist
Candy Can Construction Bridge Preschool Powol Packets
Build a Cornstarch Block Christmas Tree Gift of Curiosity
Paper Circuit Snowman Rosie Research
Sugar Cube Igloo Project The Crafty Classroom
November STEM: Giant Balloons, Thanksgiving Parades, & Engineering Get Caught Engineering
Halloween Robot Spider Craft Inspiration Laboratories
Candy Heart Catapult Stir the Wonder
Easter Catapult STEM Activity and Easter Science for Kids Little Bins Little Hands
PEEPS Parachute STEAM Challenge in Early Childhood The Preschool Toolbox
Engineering STEAM Activity: Build a Leprechaun Trap Kids STEAM Lab

Reverse Engineering

If your kids are constantly taking things apart, reverse engineering may be just the thing for them!

Reverse Engineer a Solar Toy From Engineer to Stay at Home Mom
Reverse Engineering a Fidget Spinner From Engineer to Stay at Home Mom
Recycled Toy Robot Project with Reverse Engineered Toys Brain Power Boy
Reverse Engineering Project: Disassemble, Sketch & Recap TeachEngineering
Disassemble a Click Pen TeachEngineering
Tinkering for Kids – Waffle Iron Confidence Meets Parenting
STEM Tinkering Activity: Taking Apart an Old Toy Little Worlds Big Adventures
Toy Take Apart Exploratorium
Your Kids Should Be Taking Apart Electronics! There’s Just One Mommy

Making the World a Better Place

Engineering projects should solve problems using design solutions. These activities will allow kids to explore how they can improve people’s lives in meaningful ways.

Earthquake Rollers Scientific American
Convenient Carrier PBS Kids Designer Squad Global
Articulated Grabber Engineering Project for Kids Instructables
Build a Lung Model US Patent and Trademark Office
Make Your Own Water Filters TeachEngineering
Solving a ‘Windy’ Problem Science Buddies
How to Make an Articulated Hand Go Science Kids
Building for Hurricanes eGFI
Tornado Tower Made for STEAM

Just for Fun

These engineering activities don’t fall into one of the above categories, but they do make for great learning opportunities for kids!

Engineering Kids | Rube Goldberg Machine TinkerLab
Using Pool Noodles to Build a Playhouse From ABCs to ACTs
PVC Pipe House Building Project Engineering STEM Activity Little Bins Little Hands
STEAM Challenge: Build a structure you can balance on one finger (or your nose!) Gift of Curiosity
Build a Satellite NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
How to Make Projector Using Smartphone and Magnifying Glass STEM Little Explorers
Pneumatic Machine Made for STEAM
Cardboard Automata Exploratorium
How to Make a Water Wheel Home Science Tools
Global Cardboard Challenge Imagination.org

If you enjoyed this article, try our Ultimate Guide to Teaching Science and our science worksheets and lessons for more great teaching resources.

Kids may have a couple weeks off from school, but that doesn’t mean they have to take time off from learning. If you’re clever, you can make the holiday activities kids already enjoy a little bit more academic. Best of all, kids won’t even realize that they’re learning. Use our ideas to add some educational elements to your holidays.

#1 Take a Nature Walk

Bundle up and head outside to take a nature walk. As kids walk, talk to them about the changes nature goes through during the winter (trees losing their leaves, animals digging up food they’ve hidden). You could even make up a scavenger hunt to give kids something to look for as they walk. A few suggestions include:

• Find something red
• Find some animal tracks
• Find an animal nest
• Find an animal searching for food

#2 Play in the Snow

Even playing in the snow can be a fun learning opportunity. Talk to kids about geometry, engineering, and architecture as they build snowmen and snow forts. Learn about angles and trajectory as they attempt to throw snowballs to hit a target. Bring some snow inside and talk about the states of matter as you heat it up in a pan, watching it turn from snow to water to steam. Put the melted snow in the freezer and discover what happens when it refreezes.

#3 Do a Science Experiment

Take some time do conduct a science experiment or two in your own home. Before starting, refresh kids’ knowledge of The Scientific Method and controls and variables with Help Teaching’s worksheets. Then check out our Science Activities You Will Want to Do with Your Kids or the Ultimate Guide to Teaching Science to discover fun experiments and other activities.

#4 Make Christmas Cookies

Let kids help with the measuring when you do your annual cookie baking. If you’re willing to mess up a small batch of cookies, have kids “accidentally” add too much baking soda or butter and let them see how it affects the final outcome. For large batches of cookies, give older kids a chance to figure out the amount of ingredients needed for doubling the recipe.

#5 Go Shopping

When you do some of your Christmas shopping, take the kids along and let them do some shopping of their own. When you do, put them on a budget. Kids will get a good lesson adding up prices and learning to control their spending as they try to buy something for everyone with the small amount of money they have.

#6 Watch a Christmas Movie

Even watching Christmas movies can be educational. After watching a favorite holiday movie with your kids, take some time to ask a few questions about it. If one of your movies of choice is the classic A Christmas Carol, use Help Teaching’s general A Christmas Carol or Characters in a Christmas Carol worksheet to give you some ideas of the kinds of questions to ask.

#7 Head to the Library

In the midst of all their holiday fun, kids could benefit from some downtime spent lounging on the couch with a good book. Head to your local library and have kids pick out a few books to enjoy during the holidays. If your kids don’t like to read, the library also likely has a large selection of magazines, graphic novels, and even educational movies for them to watch. Our Winter Holidays Reading List contains a good list of holiday stories you may want to check out.

#8 Make Your Own Christmas Gifts

Give kids a chance to express their creativity by making Christmas gifts for their friends and family. Head to your local craft store to help kids get inspired. An empty shoebox could become a jewelry box, while some colorful rubber bands could become the materials to make a trendy bracelet. Find lots of ideas and resources in our Ultimate Guide to Crafts for Kids. While creative skills may not seem academic, honing those skills can help kids keep their minds sharp and ready to do some creative problem-solving when they get back to math or science class.

#9 Enlighten their Devices

Gifting your kids with a new smartphone or tablet this holiday? Before handing it over, add the StudyLock app. In order to unlock their device, kids must answer a few questions, helping keep their brains sharp before they get lost in text messages and social networking. You’ll find more quality apps for kids and teens in our Guide to Quality Screen Time for Babies, Children, and Teens.

#10 Volunteer

Learning isn’t limited to math, science, or reading activities. You can also use the holidays to teach kids valuable character lessons. During the holidays, plenty of organizations need volunteers to help with their holiday events. Donate a toy to a local toy drive, sign up to serve a meal or help clean up at a local homeless shelter, or even adopt a family in need. The lesson kids learn by helping out may be more valuable than any lesson they would learn in school.

What other strategies do you use to keep kids learning during the holidays? Share them with others in the comments below.

In October 2016, Microsoft released the long-awaited Minecraft: Education Edition, making it easier for teachers to bring Minecraft into the classroom. However, you don’t need a computer or even Minecraft software to make Minecraft an integral part of your classroom. We’ve come up with some great ways to help you engage your Minecraft-loving students offline too.

Develop a How-To Guide
For students it’s often easy to play a game and much harder to show someone else how to play again. Get students to stop and think about what it takes to play Minecraft. Then have them hone their expository writing skills by developing a how-to guide or video to help other students learn how to play the game. You can have students create a brochure outlining Minecraft’s key features or create a video focused on a more specific element of the game, such as how to make a hidden doorway in a staircase.

Create a List of Rules
Before setting students free to explore the world of Minecraft, teachers often lay out a list of rules students should follow while in the game, such as not destroying others’ structures. Once students have interacted with Minecraft a bit on their own, have them come up with their own list of rules for the online community. Rules can be serious, such as using kind words, or silly, such as banning all purple structures. Developing rules will help students learn about concepts related to citizenship and developing a healthy community.

Write a Minecraft-themed Story
A quick internet search will result in a ton of Minecraft stories written by authors hoping to capitalize on Minecraft’s fame. Chances are your students know more about Minecraft than many of those authors. Put their knowledge of the game to the test by having them write stories centered around their own Minecraft worlds. If they need help getting started, check out some of our own Minecraft-themed story starters to help spur the creative writing process.

Learn Minecraft Vocabulary
Minecraft has its own set of terminology and skills. See how much your student know by pulling out Minecraft-related words and using them as part of a spelling or vocabulary test. You can also download and print our Minecraft-themed Word Search and Bingo games to introduce students to some key Minecraft vocabulary words.

Build Minecraft-inspired Structures
When students play Minecraft, they’re immersed in a pixelated world. Everything is designed using cubes, which means creating objects with triangular or rounded edges is a bit more challenging. You can explore the same concept by having challenging students to build 3D sculptures outside of the game. Sugar cubes and square blocks make great building tools.

Design Paper Plans
Before creating in Minecraft, students can also create paper blueprints of the worlds they plan to create. Using some basic graph paper, kids can shade in different grids to represent the elements of the landscape. Then they can try to recreate their drawings within the game.

Study Perimeter, Area, and Volume
The pixelated world of Minecraft offers a great way to help students learn about perimeter, area, and volume. Using their paper plans, sculptures, or groups of blocks, have students determine the perimeter and area of a structure. They can do it easily by measuring the side of one block, and then counting the number of blocks that make up the length and width of the structure. They’ll also build their multiplication skills at the same time.

Solve Minecraft-themed Word Problems
Help build students’ addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division skills through the creation of some basic Minecraft word problems. For example, how many apples does a character need or how many ink sacs and bone metal are needed to make enough gray dye? We have a few Minecraft-themed word problems to get kids started.

Create Minecraft-inspired Mosaics
Cut construction paper into squares or pick up a bag of tissue paper squares at the craft store. Glue the squares onto a piece of white construction paper to create different Minecraft-inspired mosaics. For example, students could design self-portraits or glue the squares onto a box to create full-size Minecraft-inspired versions of their heads.

Design a Color by Number Worksheet
Similar to Minecraft-inspired mosaic, design a color by number worksheet for students to complete. Have students color every square with a particular number, letter, or word a certain color. Once all the squares have been colored correctly, students will have a fun picture. You can also challenge students to create their own color by number worksheets using graph paper. Then they can give them to a classmate to solve. We’ve created a few color by number worksheets to get you started: Color by Number Parts of Speech and Color by Number Addition and Subtraction.

All of these activities incorporate the principles and ideas of Minecraft without requiring students to play the actual game. Whether you already use Minecraft in the classroom or just have students who enjoy the game, you can use these activities to help engage students throughout the school year.

Do you have any fun Minecraft-inspired resources that you use in the classroom? If so, we’d love to know about them. Share them in the comments!

Every year, the nation’s best junior spellers descend upon Washington D.C. They come to compete in the Scripps National Spelling Bee where they spell words like scherenschnitte and nunatak (2015’s winning words).  While not all kids will become national spelling bee champions, they can become better spellers. Follow these tips to help kids learn how to spell hundreds, if not thousands, of common words (like hippopotamus).

Read the Dictionary

In the musical The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, one of the contestants sings a song about how much she loves her dictionary. While most kids won’t have the same fondness for their own dictionaries, they should take some time to familiarize themselves with the dictionary and learn the words it contains. For children in elementary and middle school, consider purchasing one of Merriam Webster’s Elementary or Intermediate dictionaries so they can find words that are more appropriate for their level.

Reading through the dictionary may seem boring, but it doesn’t have to be. Make it fun by playing one of these games:

– Race to see who can be the first to find and define a word
– Try to find a word that no one has heard of before
– Make up a fake definition for a word and have someone guess which definition is real.

Learn Common Spelling Rules

You’ve probably seen some version of the poem above before. The English language is definitely very confusing and doesn’t always seem to follow the rules. However, there are some spelling rules that kids can learn. A few good rules to learn include:

1. i before e, except after a long c like in receive or in words like neighbor or weigh
2. When adding -ing, -ed, -est, and other suffixes, double the consonant when the word features a vowel + consonant at the end or when the last syllable is stressed. For example, hop becomes hopping and regret becomes regretted.
3. Drop the final e when adding a vowel suffix to a word, unless the word ends with ce or ge. For example, write becomes writing and manage becomes manageable.
4. The letter y, when preceded by a consonant, becomes i when a suffix is added. For example, happy becomes happiness.
5. Silent e helps a vowel say its name. If a vowel sound is long, it often has a silent e at the end. For example, you can see the difference in rat versus rate and hop versus hope.

Learn Frequently Confused Words

Do you know the difference between principal and principle? How about their, there, and they’re? These words frequently trip spellers up. Learning the difference between them and practicing using them correctly can help kids improve their spelling skills. Help Teaching’s Vocabulary page is full of printable worksheets designed to help kids learn the difference between these confusing words.

Learn Common Prefixes, Suffixes, and Word Roots

Take a look at the word antidisestablishmentarianism. This word is often considered one of the longest words in the English language and, upon first glance, it seems impossible to spell. However, if you break it up, you’ll realize it’s composed of many different roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Being able to recognize these word parts can be the key to becoming a good speller and figuring out the meaning of confusing words. So instead of having hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia, kids can embrace those monstrously monosyllabic words and spell them with ease. Help Teaching’s online lessons portal features many lessons to teach kids about the basic prefixes and suffixes.

Visualize Words

Have you ever written a word and said, “That doesn’t look right?” Good spellers tap into the visual sides of their brains to help them learn to spell. For little kids, that may mean using a program like Word World or Bembo’s Zoo to help them visualize the words. For older kids, it may involve writing the words multiple times or breaking the words into chunks. For example, they may see the word conscience as con-science. You may also come up with funny images, such as a picture of a wig (hair) on a chair to remind kids that words are spelled in similar ways.

Read… A LOT!

When kids read, they often see words spelled correctly. The more they see a word spelled correctly, the easier it is for them to remember how to spell it on their own. So, encourage kids to read, read, read. Keep in mind, however, that some books for kids, such as the Captain Underpants series, intentionally misspell words. If you see that words are misspelled, point them out to kids and encourage them to look up the correct spellings as a learning activity.

Use Mnemonic Devices

Mnemonic devices such as Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally and Never Eat Soggy Waffles are great for helping kids remember key math and geography facts, but they can also be used for spelling. For example, kids may remember “pull apart to separate” or “there is a place just like here.” While it may not be practical to come up with a mnemonic device for every word, you can use these clever tricks to help kids remember particularly frustrating words.

Play Spelling Games

Games like Boggle and Scrabble are great ways to help kids improve their spelling skills. For a simple version of Boggle, print out a word scramble worksheet and have kids see how many words they can create. Word searches offer another way to help kids improve their spelling skills. Pick up a cheap word search book at your local dollar store or create your own using Help Teaching’s Word Search Generator.

Practice, Practice, Practice

The best way to become a better speller is to practice spelling. If there are particular words kids want to learn, encourage them to make flashcards and study them or to write a story using those words. You should also have kids write regularly and read what they write aloud. When they read through the paper, they may find that misspelled words are difficult to pronounce.

By following these steps, kids can vastly improve their spelling skills. Want to put your own spelling skills to the test? Try your hand at the same testcompetitors take during the preliminary round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. Share your results and any additional spelling tips you have in the comments.

Between work, school, and extra-curricular activities, family time is at a premium. Take advantage of your free time on the weekend or during school vacations and try one of these science activities. Spend some quality time as a family, learn some science, and even get a bit messy!

Each activity focuses on a key scientific concept, yet can be done with basic materials. Encourage scientific thinking by asking your child to predict what will happen before doing each activity. Focus on the reasoning behind the prediction, rather than accuracy. Remember, the scientific method is a process designed to be repeated. If the prediction is not correct, that is fine, it’s science!

Pre-K – Grade 2

Young children as natural scientists. They continually experiment with the world around them. Has your toddler ever thrown food from her highchair? Perhaps she was really experimenting with gravity and projectile motion!

http://www.science-sparks.com/

Fun with Shadows – Get creative with your child while exploring light and shadows. Extend this activity by making puppets from translucent materials (see what is available in your recycling bin) and comparing their shadows with those of the opaque cardboard puppets.

Sink or Float with Nature – Although he most likely hasn’t studied density or buoyancy, your child probably has a good grasp of what floats on water. Don’t worry if it’s winter, gathering materials for this activity doubles as a good excuse to bundle up and head outside for a while. A large mixing bowl set on a towel will work well if weather requires that the experiment takes place indoors.

Walking on Eggs – The potential for an activity to go spectacularly wrong and end in a slimy mess always adds excitement to a science project. Thanks to physics, cathedral arches hold up and so should raw eggs under your child’s feet. Once your child masters the art of walking on eggshells ask her to predict the minimum number of eggs that will hold her weight. Of course she will have to try it! As an extension, this may turn into an assignment on finding the best household cleaner.

Grades 3 – 5

Older elementary students have been introduced to a wide range of science concepts. They have begun to study the various branches of science and are ready to extend learning by developing scientific questions. Challenge your student to ask follow-up questions after an activity, then design a way to test one of the question.

https://sciencebob.com/

Coloring Flowers – Flowers brighten a home no matter the season, so why not color them your child’s favorite colors? This activity demonstrates how water is pulled through plants by transpiration. White flowers work well for this, but celery acts as a good substitute. Ask your child what will happen if the stem is split and placed in different colors. Then, try it with her!

Balloon in a Bottle – Air is all around us, but understanding that this invisible gas takes up space is not necessarily intuitive. Ask your child to predict what will happen before trying to inflate the balloon each time. Be sure to use latex free balloons if any household members have latex allergies.

Discovering Sound Matters – The idea that sound requires matter can be a difficult one to grasp.  Take the opportunity to learn about sound as a vibration through matter by demonstrating the abstract with this simple and fun project.

Diaper Science – Who doesn’t love a little potty science? Disposable diapers contain sodium polyacrylate, a superabsorbent polymer. This property allows diapers to absorb and hold liquids. Maybe your scientist wants to experiment further by testing how well the diaper absorbs different household liquids.

Middle and High School

At this level, science students have a solid understanding of the scientific method and have conducted experiments at school. Perhaps they have even designed and presented experiments at science fairs. Ask your child to explain the science to you as you work on these activities together. You may be amazed by what she teaches you!

http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/

Strawberry DNA – This activity is a great introduction to DNA for students studying life science or biology. It takes an abstract concept and yields a visible result. High school students can follow-up this activity with our self-paced lesson on DNA Structure and Replication.

Build a Roller Coaster – What tween or teen doesn’t love a roller coaster? Okay, this one is a bit smaller than the ones they are used to riding on, but it is a good model for discussing transformations of mechanical energy. Add on tubes and have an all ages, family-friendly competition to see who can construct the longest track that works or the one with the tallest uphill or most loops.

Mini Snow Machine – Combine the studies of electronics and fluid dynamics by simulating a blizzard with this mini snow machine activity. See if your student can draw a electrical schematic diagram for the machine. Then, try changing the sizes of the pieces of paper to see if it impacts the blizzard.

Cleaning the Air – If your student is interested by environmental science or enjoys tinkering and building, this is the project to try. Use the engineering design process to create, build, and test an air filter to capture particulate matter. Redesign is a key step of the engineering process and should be in this activity as well!

Visit Help Teaching and utilize our growing collection of K – 12 science printables and lessons. Read The Ultimate Guide to Teaching Science for our favorite science resources for teachers and homeschooling parents.

Math month is celebrated in April each year. Why? Math has an image problem, a negative reputation of sorts. If math teachers received a nickel for every time a student asked, “When will I ever need to use this after I graduate?” – well, do the math.

At it’s heart, math is a critical tool in solving many problems in the real world. On the face of it, students probably don’t realize that math and statistics are central in ensuring our messaging and internet are secure, that modelling climate change, trends, and other big data is all math-based, and that genetic advancements and medical research has math at their heart. And everyday, the applications of math is widening into ever more sectors, such as biotechnology, energy, business, sustainability, medicine, transport and AI, to name just some. 

Without math, we simply lack a driver of innovation and the ability to either increase or decrease complexity.

Mathematics Awareness Week was established in 1986 with the hope of increasing public appreciation of math. It was later changed to a month-long celebration of math. Take advantage of this math month and explore the wonder of the world of numbers by engaging your students or child with one of the following activities that we think they’ll love.

Math Month Activity #1: Math Poetry

As it happens, the month of April is also Poetry Month, so why not combine the two themes and create some fun math poetry? This can take a number of forms:

• You can create poetry about math
• A poem can be created around a mathematical concept like the Fibonacci sequence
• Or you can use actual math to create a poem or limeric, like this example
  

Math Month Activity #2: Ask Fermi Questions

Quick! How many drops of water are in a gallon? No calculator allowed! Nobel Prize winning physicist Enrico Fermi was known for his capacity to perform rapid mental estimations. The goal of answering a Fermi question is to find an answer on the correct order of magnitude instead of an exact number. For example, I would estimate there are about 20 drops of water in a teaspoon and 768 teaspoons in a gallon. To make it easier, I can round 768 to 800 and guess that a gallon has around 16,000 drops of water. Whether the precise answer is 10,000 or 90,000 does not matter for a Fermi question, what matters is the answer is on the correct order of magnitude (10⁴ in this case). To get started, visit fermiquestions.com.

Another fun variation of this is to have an estimation jar. Fill it with jelly beans, or any other filling like dried beans, buttons, or marbles, and students can take turns estimating (or guessing!) what the answer is. The closest answer wins the prize – or if it’s something like buttons or beans, a better prize 🙂

Math Month Activity #3: Write to Manufacturers about Metric Misuse

Ask your students to make a list of products at home and record the metric labeling for volume or mass printed on the labels exactly as they appear on the products. Then have students compare the labels with the U.S. Metric Association’s guide to “Correct SI-Metric Usage.” Chances are, at least one of the products will be metrically mislabeled. Next, have each student write to a manufacturer and either point out incorrect metric usage (politely!) or thank them for promoting good metric usage. As a bonus, many manufacturers will kindly respond to student letters.

Math Month Activity #4: Explore Math in the Workplace

Dispel the myth that students will never use math once they leave school by inviting professionals to your class to share how they use math in their careers. Take a field trip a local business willing to give a tour and discuss the importance of math in the workplace. Students may be surprised to learn how often math is used outside the classroom. For more information, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics offers a Periodic Table of Stem Careers.

Math Month Activity #5: Watch a Math Movie

What student doesn’t love a movie? From The Theory of Everything to Stand and Deliver to Moneyball to Good Will Hunting, finding a movie featuring math content isn’t difficult. Get started by checking out this list of movies featuring positive math themes. Also, read Test Designer’s article on using movies in the classroom.

Bonus Math Month Activities: Read a Math Book

Who doesn’t love a good book? And if you can get one about math that isn’t  a textbook, all the better. We suggest Sir Cumference and the Dragon of Pi by Wayne Geehan (or you can check out a reading of it YouTube). Characters with fun names like Sir Cumference and Lady Di Ameter, bring light-hearted fun on an adventure that see’s our hero turned into a fire-breathing dragon and solving riddles and math puzzles to change him back.

Further Reading

Read our articles, “How to Write Higher-Order Math Questions” and “Top STEM Competitions – Could Your Student Be the Next Winner?” for more math education ideas.

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Joe Pizzuto-Pomaco is an educator, writer, and editor who has taught in public and private schools 15 years.