I am currently in a "Teaching Mathematics" class and we recently participated in a Family Math Night at an elementary school nearby. Everyone in my class paired up with a partner and thought of a fun math game that we would be able to let the children play. Our game was "Help the Penguin Find the Ice". We glued Velcro dots evenly spaced onto a poster board. Then we attached Velcro to the bottom of a plastic penguin and a piece of paper ice. Then we let the children place them anywhere that they wanted to on the poster board and their task was to count the distance from the penguin to the ice.
This activity covered the NCTM standards of measurement, reasoning and proof, and problem solving. However, my partner and I noticed some problems when we started the activity. This activity works great for students in grade K-3. They were able to practice their counting and many enjoyed playing with the penguin. If students grades 4 and 5 came to our booth, we noticed that they had no trouble with the counting and were a little bored with this activity. We realized that we had to tweak our activity by offering a challenge problem. This challenge problem would consist of my partner and I placing the penguin and the ice on the board and then telling the student to find the shortest distance possible without moving diagonal. The older students like this a lot better because, as one child put it, they "like being challenged".
There were many other fun activities that I noticed at the event. Someone glued magnets to paper fish and then tied a string to a ruler and attached a magnet to the end. The students had to "go fishing" and then they measured the length of the fish with the ruler.
This was a very fun activity to create and any school would benefit from having a Family Math Night. This idea can also be used with science by creating science experiments that the students have to participate in.
