Movement Activities and Math Skills

The school year will be starting shortly for many of us.  Start the school year off with fun, purposeful activities that combine movement with math skills.  Not only will children benefit from the physical activity, moving while learning can help with memory skills, attention and focus.  Here are three fun math activities that can be modified as needed to include many different math skills.

Purpose:  Practice sensory motor skills while reinforcing math concepts.  This is a great in class energy release.

Materials:  math flash cards, dice

Activity #1 – Flash Card Fun for a Group:  Have the group sit or stand in a circle. Create one rule for the group to start. For example, if the answer is correct everyone should clap hands and if the answer is incorrect everyone should jump in place. Pick a student to go first. Hold up a flash card.  Student responds verbally with the answer to the math problem. The rest of the group must now act.  Each student must begin to perform with clapping hands or jumping in place depending upon whether the answer is correct or incorrect. The leader then reports the correct answer. Continue playing creating new rules with new movements every 10 flash cards.

Activity #2 – Circle Math: Have the group stand in a large circle with a clear path behind the entire circle. Make sure there is ample distance between each student. The leader stands stationary out the outside of the circle. The group walks in a circle, one student behind the other. When a student arrives at the leader, the group stops walking, the students reads aloud the problem and answers it. If the answer is correct, the group continues to walk forward. If the answer is incorrect, the group walks backward in the circle. The next student now arrives at the leader and answers flash card problem. Continue playing until all flash cards have been answered.

Activity #3:  Dice Jumping: This activity is for simple math problems. Again, have the group standing in a circle with area clear. One student goes in the middle of the circle. The student rolls the dice and adds them up and shouts out the answer. The students in the circle join hands with the student in the middle. All the children jump in place the number of times of the sum of the dice. Continue playing until all students have had a turn rolling the dice.

For more activity ideas check out Get Up and Learn! – How to Integrate Movement with Learning e-book.

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