Table of Contents
1. I Have...Who Has...?
This is a really fun and interactive game for the whole class to play this World Maths Day. Each student is given a card which has an answer and a question on. You begin the game by reading out a number – “who has 15?”. The student with this number will then stand up and say “I have 15, who has 7 x 3?” and so on. See how long your students can keep going without breaking the chain!
2. World Maths Day Bingo
One activity that students are guaranteed to love is bingo! Dependent on your class’ ability, students can fill a bingo card with either numbers or unsolved sums/equations. The only requirement is that they are 1-20. You can then use a random number generator to call out different numbers 1-20. The winner of course needs a prize!
3. Designing Maths Problems
Getting your students to design their own maths problems is a fun activity that gets your pupils thinking about maths from a different perspective! Once your students have designed their own world maths day problems, get them to solve each others!
Example Word Problems:
1. Georgia read 4 books, Sienna read 6 books and Abbi read 9 books. One book was read by all three children but all the rest were different. How many books did the children read?
2. Greg’s nine chickens laid an average of six eggs each per week. Greg sold those
eggs for $3 per dozen. How much money did he collect in two weeks if he sold all his eggs?
3. Lindsay’s band had practised 27 songs. At a performance, they played 8 songs in their
first set and 9 songs in their second set. How many songs did they have for their third set, if they had to save one song for an encore?
4. Shape Hunt
Organise a shape hunt around the playground for your class! Get creative and hide different shapes around the yard and get the students to have a competition. Whoever collects the most shapes and correctly names them is the winner!
A way to make this activity more challenging is to add some strange shapes into the hunt that the children may be a little unfamiliar with. This is a fun way to teach the students about some new and interesting shapes this World Maths Day!
5. School Travel Graph
Why not get your students to collect some data and make their own graph this World Maths Day? Ask your students to go around the classroom and find out how each of their peers got to school that morning. Using the data that they’ve collected, they should be able to create their very own graph! Allow students to choose which type of graph they want to create is a good way to get them thinking about different ways to represent data.
The difficulty of this activity can be changed depending on the age of your students!
6. School Times Table Competition
A fun way to get the whole school involved in World Maths Day is to host a times table competition! Set different competitions for KS1 and KS2 students and announce the winners during an assembly.
Times tables are a vital foundation for so many topics in maths, so why not make them a part of World Maths Day? Get the whole school involved and have fun with times tables!
An excellent times table competition is featured on Emile! This is a super fun way of encouraging the whole school to get involved in learning their times tables!
7. True or False
A really fun World Maths Day activity to get students learning is a True or False game! Put together some interesting and strange maths facts plus some made up ones and get students to fill out whether they are true or false.
Some interesting maths facts:
- The number 4 is the only number with the same number of letters that it represents.
- In a classroom of 23 people, there’s a 50% chance two of them have the same birthday.
- The square root of -1 is i.
- 3.24 and -8 are examples of numbers you cannot represent as roman numerals.
- 7 is the most popular favourite number
- There are more ways to arrange a deck of cards than there are atoms on Earth.
8. Estimating Jelly Beans In A Jar
Get your students to take a guess at how many jelly beans are in a jar on your desk! Students can use their estimating skills to figure out the rough estimate of how many jelly beans there are. The student who guesses the closest value wins a prize (maybe even the jelly beans!)
9. Hourly Maths Challenge
Engage your students this World Maths Day with the hourly maths challenge! Every hour, give your class a fun maths question to solve. The first to solve the puzzle could win a small prize! This is an exciting way to get students more involved in World Maths Day.
10. Maths Brain Teasers
Brain teasers are a really enjoyable activity for students as it gets them thinking in a different way than usual. Solving a difficult brain teaser always feels like a big achievement!
Some Maths Brain Teasers:
- I am an odd number. Take away one letter and I become even. What am I? (Seven – take away the S and it becomes even!)
- I add five to nine, and get two. The answer is correct, but how? (It’s actually time! 9AM + 5 hours = 2PM)
- Think of a number. Double it. Add 10. Halve it. Take away your original number. Your answer is 5! Can you explain how
this works? (This works because the doubling and halving cancel each other out. So, all that is left when you subtract the original number is 5) - Here is a good website with more fun maths brain teasers!
11. Snail Racing
This activity is great for students to improve their fluency in addition to twelve! Get your pupils to draw 12 snails with 10 boxes beside each of them. Students will take turns rolling two dice and then adding them up. The sum of the two dice determines which snail moves forward one. 12 students can then race each other and see which of them gets to 10 first!
12. Emile
Why not try out Emile this World Maths Day? Emile is an amazing learning resource for pupils in KS1 and KS2! We engage students in learning through fun, educational games. Emile tracks the progress of each student and using this data will target specific areas that they need to work on! This ensures progress for each student.
Emile is the perfect resource for days like these as students will LOVE playing these fun and engaging games that we offer! Try it out today!
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