Scary Math Games

Use scary activities to entertain students while teaching math.

Stock up on Halloween trinkets to use during scary math games. Spice up the classroom during the fall, or any time of the year with interactive learning games. Students will look forward to math class and center activities when games are infused with education. Scary math projects can encompass basic addition, multiplication and story problems for a variety of elementary grade levels.

Bone Basketball

Play a rousing game of "Bone Basketball" to reinforce simple addition, subtraction or story problems for elementary school students. Use a discarded cardboard box to make a coffin shaped container. You could also draw one on butcher paper and glue it around several plastic clothes baskets or plastic storage bins. Purchase some plastic bones from a party supply store for students to use as counting manipulatives. After a student arrives at the right answer, a bone is tossed into the faux coffin to make a basket and earn a prize.

Fraction Brew

Enhance student knowledge of fractions with the "Fraction Brew" activity. Purchase a plastic cauldron at a Halloween store. You will then need to gather the "brew" ingredients and label them with a fraction prior to class. Make more ingredients than the answer calls for so the students have to multiple combinations to choose from while working the problem. Suggested ingredients are colored and laminated spooky pictures of eyeballs, spiders, bloody fingers and ghouls. Bring apple cider or hot chocolate to use as a drinkable "brew" at the end of the lesson. Tell the students they are tasked with making a witch's brew for four creepy goblins. The recipe you give them to work with will only serves one, so they have to decipher how to increase each ingredient appropriately.

Pumpkin Predictions

Predicting measurements with scary pumpkins will capture the student's attention far more than a mundane worksheet. You could either draw spooky faces on six pumpkins, or allow students to showcase their creativity and make the faces themselves. Have the students predict the pumpkin's diameters, weight, mass, circumference and height. Play some creepy music while the students work in small groups to complete the project.

Spooky Storybooks

You can teach story problems with a fright-night flare with math storybooks. Staple or bind together scary math coloring sheets for each student. Reduce the images or choose pictures small enough to leave room at the bottom of the page for writing. Tell the students to use what is going on in the photo to create a story problem to read to the class. After the books are complete, students can take turns going to the board to share their math problems and color the pages.

References

• Teachnology: Halloween Lesson Plans
• Kids Halloween Activities: Halloween Math