hands-on math

Early Math Lessons blog photo with little plastic bears and M&MS arranged on a table.

Early Math Lesson Ideas

Math is so much fun and means so much more to little ones when it concretely builds understanding. So many times, we skip over “the tough stuff” because we think our little people can’t handle it. Below are a few activities I have done with my five-year-old to begin building two of the “tough” concepts –  division…

A row of paper airplanes using green, orange, yellow, purple, and blue construction paper. Used as a pinnable image for a blog post about paper airplane math.

Paper Airplane Math

Graphing comes to life with this fun paper airplane math activity! Create, fly, collect data, and use technology for serious learning that will motivate your elementary and middle school children to love learning. Paper Airplane Graphs Grab some colorful paper and let your children have fun designing paper airplanes to test their awesomeness. After collecting…

Bead Classification

  Target Age Range: PK-2 Skills Covered: sorting, classification, attributes Classification is both a math and science skill.  The ability to classify objects also develops organizational skills which are helpful for writing and general “life” organization. This activity is super simple to pull together.  Simply gather a variety of beads (or buttons, cereal, rocks, beans…)…

M&M image for a blog post about M&M Math

M&M Math

(This post contains affiliate links.) Talk about a fun week of learning with M&M Math! Below you’ll find all sorts of activities we have done for M&M Math.  Most of the ideas could easily be used with other types of candy pieces, too. Estimation: Fill a jar with M&M’s and ask your children to estimate…