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end of school year math activities for elementary school

10 Awesome Math Project Ideas for Grades 1-8

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10 Awesome Math Project Ideas for Grades 1-8

Fun Math Projects for All Grade Levels

Are you looking for fun math project ideas for your students?

Math Projects for Middle School, Elementary School, and High School Students.

The following list of math project ideas are perfect for keeping your students engaged during the final weeks of the school year (or at any other time as well). These activities can be adapted to all grade and ability levels and are included in our 21 Time-Saving Strategies, Activities, and Ideas All Math Teachers Should Know.

Having students work on fun math projects (and math art projects) is a great way to keep their attention and break up the monotony of the normal classroom routine.

The following math project ideas for elementary school, middle school, and high school students can all be modified to appropriately challenge and engage your math students based on their interests and skill/ability levels. We highly recommend that you differentiate whatever math project you choose to best meet the needs of your students.

Now, are you ready to learn about some fun math projects that you can use to engage your students this school year?

(Do you want free K-8 math resources and activities in your inbox every week? Click here to sign up for our free math education email newsletter)


1.) The Ultimate Paper Airplane Competition

Grade Levels: Grades 1-8+

Description: Working individually or collaboratively, students must construct a paper airplane that is best suited for distance, accuracy, and hang time. This project involves a research phase, experimentation, data collection, analysis, and a presentation. This project is great for the end of the school year when the weather is nice and students can test their paper airplane performance outdoors.

Click here to learn more about the Ultimate Paper Airplane Competition Project

Math Project Ideas: The Ultimate Paper Airplane Competition


2.) Dream Home Design Project

Grade Levels: Grades 1-8+

Description: For this fun math art project, students are tasked with designing the floor plans for their dream homes and backyards by applying math skills including measurement, scale, area, and perimeter. Students can use graph paper and markers or digital tools like Google Sketchup to create their home’s blueprints, calculate the cost of building materials and furniture, and design the layout of their houses interior and exterior.

You can modify the project based on your students’ grade, skill, or ability level as well as your access to resources. You can also have students design a city, amusement park, dining hall, etc.

Math Project Ideas: Dream Home Design


3.) Math Riddles, Puzzles, and Brain Teasers!

Grade Levels: Grades K-8

Description: Spend a day having your students work on super fun and challenging math riddles and brain teasers. I like to print out the activities and post them around my classroom and/or in the hallways and have my students travel from station to station attempting to solve each brain bender!

Here are a few links for access free grade and topic-specific math riddle and brain teaser worksheets:

 

Math Projects for Middle School Students: Puzzles, Riddles, and Brain Teasers

 

4.) Play Math Jeopardy!

Grade Levels: Grades 3-6

Description: Are your students ready to play Math Jeopardy? These fun interactive Jeopardy games include a hidden Daily Double question as well as a Final Jeopardy video question.

Click the links below to play Math Jeopardy for the following grade levels:

Math Project Ideas: Math Jeopardy!


Do you more FREE K-8 math resources and activity ideas in your inbox every week?


5.) Budgeting Your Dream Vacation

Grade Levels: 4-8+

Description: For this project, give your students a budget that they have to spend on their dream vacation for just themself and a friend. Students will have to research the cost of travel, lodging, meals, and leisure activities to cover a 7-10 day vacation to a location of their choosing.

Math Project Ideas: Budget and Plan Your Dream Vacation


6.) Build a Fraction Kit

Grade Levels: 3-8+

Description: Building a fraction kit using colored construction paper is one of the best ways to help your students to understand math concepts related to fractions, including simplifying fractions, equivalent fractions, comparing fractions, and adding and subtracting fractions.

Click here to for step-by-step instructions on building a fraction kit

 
Image via www.mashupmath.com

Image via www.mashupmath.com

 

7.) Math Card Games!

Grade Levels: 3-8+

Description: Spend a day having your students engage in fun math games that require only a standard deck of playing cards to play. Here are a few fun ideas:

Math Project Ideas: Play Math Card Games


8.) Create Your Own Math Board Game

Grade Levels: 2-8+

Description: For this math project, students are tasked with creating their own math-related board games based on an assigned topic/skill or one of their choosing. To complete this project, students must choose a concept, plan their game, create a game board, design the game pieces, uses spinners or dice to determine how players will navigate the board, test and revise the game, and present their final product to the class.

Math Project Ideas: Create Your Own Math Board Game!


9.) History of Math Research Project

Grade Levels: 1-8+

Description: For this project, students will research and present on a famous individual or civilization and their contributions to the field of mathematics. Here are a few great resources for inspiring students to learn about some lesser know mathematicians and their amazing contributions to mathematics:

 

Math Project Ideas: Make a presentation about a famous mathematician or civilization.

 

10.) Stock Market Project

Grade Levels: 4-8+

Description: For this financial math project, students must build their own 10-stock portfolio using a $10,000 budget. Students must research and analyze publicly traded companies and their stock performances to make their picks. They can invest in companies that they are familiar with such as Netflix, Facebook, McDonalds, and more!

We recommend showing this short TED-Ed Video How Does the Stock Market Work and using Google to research companies, find stock symbols, and see corresponding graphs and charts.

 

Math Project Ideas: Stock Market Project

 


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10  Awesome End of Year Math Activities for Grades 1-8

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10 Awesome End of Year Math Activities for Grades 1-8

endofyear.jpg

Looking for Effective and Easy End of Year Math Activities?

The final weeks of the school year have arrived and keeping your students engaged in learning math is no easy task.

You can mix up your instruction and keep your students interested in learning math by incorporating a few awesome end of year math activities and projects into your upcoming lesson plans.

The following end of year math activity ideas are perfect for implementing during the final weeks of the school year, an extremely hectic time when sticking to your usual routine is nearly impossible.

And each end of year math activity is easy to modify to best meet the needs of your students! The activities can be modified for students at the elementary, middle, and high school levels.

So, which end of year math activity will you share with your students this spring?

(Tags: end of year math projects, end of year math activities, 1st grade, 2nd grade, 3rd grade, 4th grade, 5th grade, 6th grade, 7th grade, 8th grade, grade 1, grade 2, grade 3, grade 4, grade 5, grade 6, grade 7, grade 8)


1.) Math Book Report

Description: Standard math curriculums hardly ever make time for students to actually read about math. The end of the school year is the perfect time to give your students an opportunity to choose a book about math and create and share a book report.

One option is to have your students research a famous mathematician. I also like having students choose a math-related fiction book, like any of the ones included on this list of 13 STEM Fiction Books Your Kids Will Love.

There are tons of excellent math-fiction books available for students of all grade levels.

There are tons of excellent math-fiction books available for students of all grade levels.


2.) Tessellation Project

by GeometryCoach.com

Description: This project blends elements of the history of math, geometry, and art/design into an engaging learning experience where students use mathematical thinking to manipulate shapes to create “Escher tiles” and use them to create geometric works of art!

Tessellation Monsters via www.artwithmrsnguyen.com

Tessellation Monsters via www.artwithmrsnguyen.com


3.) Barbie Bungee

Description: The Barbie Bungee data collection activity may be the most underrated math activity ever. Ideal for pre-algebra students, this activity gives students a fun and engaging opportunity to make predictions, collect real-world data, and then analyze the results within the context of their initial hypothesis. This activity is even endorsed by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM), who share free lesson resources for any teacher interested in trying the Barbie Bungee in their classroom.


4.) Escape Room!

Description: Classroom ‘escape room’ lessons are growing in popularity. Why? Because classroom escape rooms boost student excitement and engagement while helping your kids apply and improve their mathematical problem-solving skills.

If you are new to the idea of classroom escape rooms (sometimes called breakout challenges), check out this blog post So You Want to Build a Classroom Escape Room… by We Are Teachers.

Are you ready to turn your classroom into an escape room for a day?

Are you ready to turn your classroom into an escape room for a day?


5.) The Parachute Project

by Amy at www.allabout3rdgrade.com

Description: Students use their math skills to design and build a parachute that will stay in the air the longest. This STEM activity is a great opportunity for math and science teachers to collaborate—and it’s a great activity to do outdoors!

Image via www.allabout3rdgrade.com

Image via www.allabout3rdgrade.com


Are YOU looking for some super fun daily math puzzles for your students in grades 3-8? Our best-selling 101 Daily Math Challenges workbook is now available as a PDF download!


6.) Plan and Budget Your Dream Vacation

by Jennifer at www.loveteachingkids.com

Description: Students are given a budget and have to work groups to plan all aspects of their determined “dream vacation.” This end of year math activity allows students to learn more about budgeting, personal finance, and real-world math applications. Aside from vacation planning, this activity can be modified to budgeting things like personal finances, events, starting a business, etc.

Image via www.loveteachingkids.com

Image via www.loveteachingkids.com


7.) Build Fraction Kits

by Anthony at www.youtube.com/mashupmath

Description: Many students struggle with fractions and never really grasp the important concepts. Whether you want to help fortify your students’ understanding of fractions before the school year ends or you want to expose them to fractions a little early, this simple hands-on activity is highly effective and is definitely worth giving a shot!

Click here to get your Free Fraction Kit Lesson Guide!

Image via www.mashupmath.com

Image via www.mashupmath.com


8.) Area and Perimeter Architecture

By Glimmersnaps Homeschool

Description: Students explore and apply the concepts of area and perimeter by building a city using LEGO bricks! This hands-on activity is another great example of how math teachers can use LEGO to teach challenging concepts.

If you don’t have access to Lego bricks, check out this free STEM: Area and Perimeter City activity guide by teachbesideme.com.

Image via www.glimmersnaps.com

Image via www.glimmersnaps.com


“I always look forward to getting my Mashup Math newsletter email every week. I love the free activities!”

-Christina R., 5th Grade Math Teacher, Dallas, TX

Do YOU want free math resources, lesson activities, and puzzles and games for grades 1-8 in your inbox every week? Join our mailing list and start getting tons of free stuff (including a free PDF workbook)!


9.) Year End Reflection Activity

by Brain Waves Instruction

Description: In this activity, students take time to reflect on what they learned in math this past school year, what challenges they overcome, and how they’ve grown as problem solvers. This activity is perfect for teachers who have students complete a math portfolio over the course of the school year.

Image via www.fouroclockfaculty.com

Image via www.fouroclockfaculty.com


10.) Math Puzzles and Brain Teasers

Description: The end of the school year is a great time to let your students apply their mathematical problem-solving skills to fun puzzles, brain teasers, and challenge questions.

You can access dozens of free math puzzles for all grade levels by visiting our Free Math Puzzles page.



Have any more ideas for awesome end-of-year math project ideas? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

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By Anthony Persico

Anthony is the content crafter and head educator for YouTube's MashUp Math and an advisor to Amazon Education's 'With Math I Can' Campaign. You can often find me happily developing animated math lessons to share on my YouTube channel . Or spending way too much time at the gym or playing on my phone.

 
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