fun ideas for math class during Chanukah

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Fun ideas for math class during Chanukah

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precious

Wed, Dec 01 2010, 7:07 pm

I like to do fun activities in my resource room class on Chanukah - any ideas (4th grade level - addition, subtration, multiplication)?

Atali

Wed, Dec 01 2010, 7:12 pm

precious wrote:

I like to do fun activities in my resource room class on Chanukah - any ideas (4th grade level - addition, subtration, multiplication)?

A few chanukah-related problems on a worksheet with a chanukah-related treat given to any kid who finishes the sheet.

Sample problems:

If Sara has 9 bags of Chanukah gelt and each bag has four pieces, how many pieces of chanukah gelt does she have?

If Avrumie had 10 bags with five dreidels each and then gave nine dreidels to Yitzy, how many does he have left?

leomom

Wed, Dec 01 2010, 9:41 pm

Figuring out how many candles will be needed for the whole holiday is always a classic - or make it more challenging by varying it:

- how many candles for two menorahs
- how many candles not including the shamashim
- or give a ratio for the colors in a box of candles (1 blue: 1 red: 2 yellow) and let them figure out how many of each color there are in the box

That last one is pretty advanced! But it's good to have ideas on hand for the really sharp kids.

Or how about:

- A candle is 5 inches tall and it takes 10 minutes to burn down a half an inch. How long will it take for the candle to burn down completely?

- Sarah, Rivka, Rochel, and Leah are playing dreidel. Sarah has the most pennies, Rivka has half the number of pennies Sarah has, Rochel has half the number Rivka has, and Leah has half the number Rochel has. Leah has 5 pennies. How many does Sarah have?

c.c.cookie

Wed, Dec 01 2010, 10:09 pm

Math can be FUN?! JK - I just always hated math.

leomom

Wed, Dec 01 2010, 10:12 pm

Oh - and make sure you have REAL candles and dreidels and chocolate gelt to use as manipulatives!

seeker

Wed, Dec 01 2010, 10:39 pm

How big a group?

I like to play dreidel and make up new rules to tie in the math.

Example:
prepare review questions to answer on each turn: addition for nun, multiplication for gimmel, etc.
Or for more playing and less work, nun is a math question (with pennies earned as answered), gimmel hey shin proceed as usual.
Or, don't know if you're up to it yet at this time of year but it's a basic enough level of the concept - can use the game to introduce the concept of fractions of a group. If hey is take half of what's in the middle and shin is put in half of what you have (don't know if I'm getting the rules exactly right but who cares) then they get lots of practice calculating half of a quantity. Can also work to reinforce/introduce the idea that half is the flipside of the two times table.

leomom

Thu, Dec 02 2010, 12:04 am

Also - keeping score (for any game you make up) is great math practice.

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