- Activities involving money and change always inspire student interest. For young children, keep cups of fake pennies, nickels and dimes at their desks. They can use the coins as manipulatives for simple addition and subtraction problems. Nickels and dimes are useful for skip-counting activities as well. Integrate money-based questions into your daily routines. Ask how many nickels students need to buy a lunch item or how much two books on the book-order form cost. Enlist student helpers to total quantities of money for you for picture day or from fundraisers. Set up a learning center with a pretend store and a cash register to give students opportunities to pay for items and make change.
- Students are perennially asking questions regarding time, so it is beneficial to place concrete reminders of the daily schedule and the time for each segment of the schedule. Ask students to look at the schedule every morning and identify what happens at various times of day. You can place a clock with movable hands near the schedule and assign a daily timekeeper to move the hands at the beginning of each activity to the appropriate hour. Use time as a measurement tool as well by having students estimate how long it will take them to clean the class library or line up for lunch and then timing them.
- Mental-math activities are a great way to sharpen students' knowledge of different types of equations and various mathematical rules. Have students place their hands on their heads to indicate full attention. Tell them to mentally add two numbers. Have them subtract 1 from the total. Have them multiply the total by 0, which prompts them to remember the rule about multiplying by 0. Have them add 4 to the total. Ask them to show on their fingers what number they get. You can adjust mental-math activities to make them relevant to what the class is learning. Older students can try mental math with fractions, decimals, money or negative numbers.
