Morning Basket Math Plan

Like I said in the last post, I was totally inspired by Your Morning Basket's podcast about Math Activities. It was so freeing when she said that the math you do in the morning should be fun and doesn't have to tie directly into any kind of curriculum. So, I scoured Pinterest and also came up with a few things of my own. We'll only do these once a week and if they have stuff in them, it'll sit in the basket all week, I think. That part is to be determined.


Ps- I don't get paid for any of the affiliate links.... I kind of feel like I should set it up so I do, but as of right now, it's just one more thing to do.

Here is my weekly PLAN (remember, this is just a plan. Things will change, I'm sure). If I ever get the time/energy/desire to make these all cute, I might put them up for sale on Teachers Pay Teachers. I haven't ever done that, but I love the site, so why not?

There are 36 weeks in our school year. These are the orders I wrote things down, not necessarily the order I'll do them in. Ready? Ok!

1. Area Dice Roll- Get out graph paper. Roll two dice. Use the first one for the length and the second one for the width. Turn it into a rectangle. Find out the area. Color it in. Fill the entire  graph paper.

2. Tenzi- Instructions to play HERE but we use this set of dice so everyone can have their own color.

3. Geo Boards- I actually found a cute little instruction on how to do a travel one, but for our morning basket, I plan on making one like this one on Little Bins for Little Hands . Totes adorbs, am I right?

4. $100 Word Challenge- I orginally was going to make my own and draw it big on my special big paper- and I still might draw it there, but you can get it for free here at TpT!

5. Tanagrams! I don't really need to say more, do I? I plan on buying mine at Amazon, unless I run out of money, then I'll use the old Discovery Toys Playful Patterns game I got at the thrift store for $2 several years ago. I went to the Dollar Store and got foam paper and made new shapes to go with it. They don't even make the game the same way anymore. It's all fancified now.

6. Race to $.25- I googled this a second ago and found that there are many different versions. The one I plan on using is found at Mrs Prince and Co.

7. Multiplication Squares- Games 4 Gains has a free printable and I think my kids will love!

8. Math Dice Game- according to the blog I got this from, if you buy this brand of dice, the basic instructions come with it. I inherited the dice, so I don't have them, but Think Fun Math Dice does have the instructions. What We Do All Day also has a second game you can play with them.

9. K'Nex Angles- This one was kind of tricky. The link that I found it on was pretty much a dead link. So I had to do some digging, but in doing so, found This K'Nex Math Curriculum. I'm SO going to be using that! Page 18 has what you're looking for on this one, though. Oh, and you might need some K'Nex. ;)

10. Pattern Block Fraction Math- I still need to buy pattern blocks. Again, I could probably use the foam ones I need, but it's been a secret lifelong dram of mine to have the classic wooden ones that I played with when I was in 3rd grade.... This particular activity looked like so much fun, though!

11. Less Than Alligators- There is a blog post about it from Doodle Bugs with a link to her TpT store.

12.  Kaboom- apparently this game is super cool because you can fit it to your any need. We will be using it for basic math facts, like, all 4 of the basics because we have that many kids. Instructions on how to make the game can be found here at 5th Grade Rocks.

13. Popsicle Stick Shapes- I don't have a lot of info on this, but it's pretty self explanatory. You take as many popsicle sticks as there are to the sides of shape you want (ie, 3 for triangles, 4 for squares, etc). Paint the sticks to match. On one side, write the number of sides (3, 4, etc) and on the main part, write the name of the shape. You can see a picture HERE to see what I'm talking about, but you have to scroll down to the 4th activity. The link it goes to is dead.

14. Door Angles- This one looked pretty fun! #15 is from the same site as well, but at Middle School Math Man, they have some fun activities. You'll need washi tape for this one. I would use sticky notes to put the correct angle down, but that's just me.

15. Angle Tape- From the same link, I don't have a big enough white board, but I've got plenty of really big boards around the house that will work. I'll just have to bust out the sticky notes instead of writing on the wood.

16. Math Facts Walk- this will be nice as my kids are learning 3 different things at the moment... I COULD have them race, but I'm afraid that would end in a fight.

17. Fibonacci Number Exploration-  Doodling In Math has some cool videos about this.

18. Mobius Strip Hearts- Not going to lie, I'll probably make sure this actually DOES happen in February.

19. Fish Tessellation- Why'd I pick a fish one? I mean, come on? Do I need to answer that? Thanks to Art Projects For Kids for this one!

20. Pi City- I've actually done that one before. So you print out Pi for as much as you want. Then you get graph paper. And I'll let What We Do All Day explain the rest.

21. Spirolaterals- I may be on a What We Do All Day kick, but have you SEEN their genius stuff?! It's amazing and I could never come up with that kind of stuff on my own.

22. Fibonacci Circles- I know I already did a Fibonacci thing, but this one looked like so much fun. Guess where I got the idea from? Oh, you did guess What We Do All Day? Well done, friend, well done.

23. Lego Game-  There are TONS of math things you can do with Legos, but I just wanted to pick one, so I chose this one from Teach With Laughter.  I'll be altering it to fit my kids' needs, of course.

24. Lego Classification- I did stay with the Lego theme for one more activity, though, and that was for this cool Lego Classification Set by Life Over C's.

25. Measuring Race- I got the basic idea from this from that Podcast I was telling you about, but I kind of ran with it. For my kids, I'll give them each a ruler and tell them a measurement, say, an inch. Then they will have a time limit to find as many things that measure that as possible and bring them back. We'll make sure there are no duplicates and record the answers! Depending on time, we'll stick with one measurement or we'll do several.

26. Popcorn Math Review- the reason I'm so excited about this one is that we can cover ALL the review stuff for ALL the kids' ages!! Relief Teaching Ideas is where I found this one!

27.  Time Puzzles- Found these puzzles- pretty simple concept, picture of the clock on one side, time it tells on the other.

28. Cup Stacking Mean, Medium, and Mode- I had to read this a few times because this is one of the concepts that I don't understand very well. Hubby still might have to help with it, but I think it would make him feel special anyway. I just love the idea that it is hands on, creative, and competitive. All kids will have their own stack.

29. Math Facts Baseball- I just love everything about this!!!

30. Grocery Ad Rounding- For this, you take ads from your local store and give the kids a shopping list. They find the items and round them to the nearest dollar. Add up their totals to estimate their "shopping trip." You could also gave them plan a menu using mainly items on sale or give them a specific recipe. Totally whatever floats your boat. You could ALSO compare ads.

31. Place Value Ice Cream- pretty simple. Miss Giraffe's Class put this one together and it's super adorable!!

32. Pizza Builders- I found this cute pizza activity, but realized it wasn't everything I wanted. I will still be purchasing that, but taking it one step further. I'm going to put a price with every pizza part- examples: crust $1.00, sauce $.50, mushrooms $.05 each, pepperoni $.01 each. For most of the kids, they will follow the recipes included in the printout kit and will have to find the total each pizza "costs." For the older kids, I think I will have them also figure out how to best distribute the toppings. Who knows, that part is just a maybe.

33. Multiplication War- Played similar to classic war, this one each player plays 2 cards at a time and multiplies them. Whoever has the highest product wins. I think it would be fun that if you get a war, you put your 3 cards down face up, and find the average of them. Highest average wins. BOOM, that part just came to me RIGHT now.

34. Wish List Price Check- I've already given my kids an opportunity to write down the things they'd like to put on their wish lists and how much they cost in an effort to encourage saving their money. This activity takes it a smidgen further, though, and gives the kids the big 'ol holiday catalogs. They get to cut out EVERYTHING they want and write down the price, then total 'em up.

35. Million Dollar Project- When we did this in Jr High, it was actually a really big deal and took like, a week. In case you don't know how it works, you "give" each kid $1,000,000 even if it's just written on the paper. The kids get to "spend" it however they want. It's nice to give them a real world idea how much things cost. To speed this process up, I think I'll give my kids must have items- house, car, education, etc.

36. Games- we won't play all these games at once, but if there are any of these on the list that I just don't get around to doing or if I want to do stuff over holiday breaks, my kids LOVE games. Our favorites are Numbers League, Pay Day, Monopoly, Farkle, Speed, Spit, Yahtzee, Monopoly Deal, and Uno. We have Sumoku  but don't know how to play it. On our list of possibilities are Money Bags, Rush Hour, Say Cheese,  Dino Tracks,  and Monopoly Jr., and Blink.

Anywho- whether or not this helped you, it was nice for me to have it all spelled out with links for when I lose them. :D