3 Fun Math Warm-Up Activities

By Chloe, Instructor

We’ve all been there. It’s time to start the math work, but no one can find their enthusiasm. The idea of sitting and grinding out equation after equation—repeating the same steps over and over—makes the kids a little less than excited.

Never fear! With these fun math warm-up activities, your students or kids will stretch their minds but feel like they’re playing a game—the perfect combination to encourage growth and learning!

Below you’ll find three activity suggestions, but I would also encourage you to search the internet to find even more ideas for fun ways to get the brain juices flowing.

1. Play Math Jeopardy!

   I know what you’re thinking. What’s “Math Jeopardy”? Well, much like the game show that this activity is named for, you start out by giving your student the answer, and telling them to make up the question that got you there!

   For example: “The answer is 45.” Now, challenge the learner to use whatever concept you’ve most recently learned to arrive at that answer. If you’re in simple addition, maybe they’ll come up with “39 + 6”, which is a correct answer. If you’re learning multiplication, some correct answers include “9 x 5” or “15 x 3”.

   You can be as creative as you want, challenge the student to write a word problem, a multi-step problem, or incorporate variables (if they’re learning algebra already).

2. "I Am"

   “I am” is a logic puzzle where a series of facts are given, and then students are encouraged to find the number being referred to.

   For example: “I am a number. I have 3 digits. The number in the one's place is two less than the number in the tens place. I am divisible by 3. Who could I be?”

   A lot of these puzzles will have multiple correct solutions, so if you know of a different answer than your student finds, challenge them to see if they can find another!

3. Speed Challenge

   There are multiple ways to do a speed challenge. One way is by using flashcards and trying to get through the whole deck as fast as possible… and then seeing if you can beat your own time!

   One of my favorite types of speed challenge is played with two kids who can’t see each other’s papers. Have each of them write down a number (you can delegate how large or small this number should be depending on how advanced the kids’ learning is). Then, tell both of them what the sum of those two numbers is. The first person to correctly name the other student’s number is the winner!

   This can also be played with other math operations like multiplication and subtraction.

By the time you’ve finished playing, your student or child will be having a blast while doing math, and getting them to finish their worksheet or finish the chapter they have for homework shouldn’t be too much of a hassle!

Best of luck, and I hope you enjoy using these new techniques to get into the mental math mind space.

To find out more about where your child is at with their math learning, schedule a free math skills assessment with Mathnasium. Assessments are currently all online via live-stream with an instructor, although instructional sessions can be either online or in-person.