Homeschool activities
Homeschool math activities, Pre-K to Grade 8
Math at home works best with real things in real hands. These activities turn snacks, socks, coins, pizza and your own rooms into counting, money, fractions, patterns, time and measuring, and each one says what your child practises and what your part is.
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- A cardboard arcade game: An arcade game your child built from a box, that the family played. (Grade 3–4 to Grade 7–8)
- Origami: a boat, a frog, a crane: A paper model your child folded that works: a boat that stands, a frog that jumps, a crane that flaps. (Grade 1–2 to Grade 7–8)
- Paper weaving: A woven paper mat with a pattern your child chose and kept going. (Kindergarten to Grade 1–2)
- Potato and leaf prints: A row of potato and leaf prints that repeats, made by your child. (Pre-K to Grade 1–2)
- Torn paper picture: A torn paper picture your child made with their fingers, and can tell you about. (Pre-K to Kindergarten)
- Balance the beast: Keep the scale level and find what is in the box. (Grade 3–4 to Grade 7–8)
- Below zero: Your child reads and moves through numbers below zero the way a lift, a thermometer and a diver do. (Grades 5–6 and 7–8)
- Build my room: Your child measures their own room, and the Pet's room changes to match. (Kindergarten to Grade 5–6)
- Bundle builders: Ten loose sticks and one bundle of ten are the same ten. (Kindergarten to Grade 5–6)
- Cover without gaps: Same tiles, new shape: your child sees what area means. (Kindergarten to Grade 5–6)
- Feed the crowd: Your child keeps a recipe's mix the same at any size, the way a cook does. (Grades 5–6 and 7–8)
- Pizza fractions: Fractions make sense, one slice at a time. (Grades 3–4 and 5–6)
- Half for you, half for me: Fair shares at the table, and what to do with one left over. (Kindergarten to Grade 3–4)
- How many do you think?: A feel for how big a number is, and that a guess can be off and still be useful. (Grade 1–2 to Grade 7–8)
- Keep the boat level: Load the boat so it floats level, and find that far out tips it more. (Kindergarten to Grade 3–4)
- Lemonade stand: Your child runs the stand and gives change like a shopkeeper. (Pre-K to Grade 3–4)
- Make the amount: The same amount, made two ways with real coins. (Kindergarten to Grade 5–6)
- Measure me: Hands, then string, then a tape: how tall is everyone? (Kindergarten to Grade 3–4)
- Number hunt: Real numbers from your street, put in order. (Kindergarten to Grade 1–2)
- Pattern parade: Your child hears a rule, keeps it going, then makes one. (Pre-K to Grade 5–6)
- Secret rule machine: Your child finds a machine's secret rule, then tests it on a number it has not seen. (Kindergarten to Grade 5–6)
- Snack count: A number becomes an amount your child can hold. (Pre-K to Kindergarten)
- Sock sort: Your child makes a rule, keeps it, and counts the piles. (Pre-K to Kindergarten)
- How many?: Seeing seven at a glance, without counting one by one. (Kindergarten to Grade 1–2)
- The Pet's shop: Money maths that buys something real for the Pet's room. (Grade 1–2 to Grade 7–8)
- The picture that fooled us: Your child reads a chart's numbers before its picture, and spots when the picture does not match them. (Grades 5–6 and 7–8)
- What time is it?: Reading a clock with hands, and the minutes until dinner. (Grades 1–2 and 3–4)
- Which one doesn't belong?: Your child looks closely and says why, in their own words. (Pre-K to Grade 3–4)
- Which one doesn't belong? Together: Maths talk on a call with someone who loves your child. (Kindergarten to Grade 3–4)