20+ Fun Offline Mathematics Activities For Your Classroom

By Wendy Verdaasdonk

Published on Thu Jan 28 2021 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

We are aware that schools all over the world are in different situations at the moment, so we have added in activities that students can complete both at home and in class. Hopefully, it can inspire you to create a playful, (partially) offline lesson this week!

Ages 5 - 7

• Ask students to find mathematical shapes around their house or around your classroom. For example, can your students find 3 triangles? Ask them to count the number of sides or angles. They can also identify and count faces, edges and vertices (corners). This will help them to identify and explore 2D and 3D shapes.
• Play our free downloadable board game Pirates & Parrots and learn how to read and count numbers from 1 to 45.
• Take a clock off the wall and ask students to show different times by moving the hands. You can even make your own clocks with a paper plate and cut out hands. Additionally, you could create a digital clock template for students to shade to show different times. This will help students to read and understand time in a variety of formats.
• Playing Hopscotch is a great way to get the energy flowing and learn numbers at the same time.
• Let students find objects in their house and order or group them according to various properties for example, height, weight, length or colour. This will help them with the concept of measurement and grouping with real-life examples.
• Build Lego or block towers and use them as bar models which help students to understand many different mathematical concepts from number to fractions and ratios.

Ages 7 - 9

• Encourage parents to bake something with their children this week. When students measure out the ingredients they will learn about measurement as well as mass, volume or capacity and temperature. And they have a tasty treat to show for their efforts!
• Use Monopoly money and various household items to create a ‘shop’. Students will learn about currency, profit and loss, and addition and subtraction. Maybe they can sell the goods they baked in the previous activity!
• If your students have the opportunity to go outside, or even to the woods, they can use a tally chart to record some data. They could count different types of birds or modes of transport or colours of cars. Then they can draw a bar chart to show their results. This is a great way to start to learn about data handling.
• Organise a scavenger hunt - can your students find 10 golden star stickers? And 3 red Lego blocks?
• Practice times tables while skipping rope.

Ages 9 - 11

• Fold a Hexaflexagon, download a template for free here!
• If you’re in the classroom, you play shop and have your students control the cash register. How much change does the customer get?
• Complete the puzzle of a hundred steps worksheet created by mathematics teacher Drew Foster. It is free to download here.
• Let your students’ creativity run free by asking them to come up with a new game using a deck of playing cards.
• Another activity with a simple deck of playing cards is having students try and make predictions when drawing cards. This is a good way to introduce the concept of probability. How likely are you to pick a red card, for example?
• Learn to play Sudoku - free beginners Sudoku puzzles are easily found online.

Ages 11 - 14+

• Have your students cut out different shapes. Can they measure the angles? What do the angles add up to? Can they identify a pattern?
• Your students will learn about symmetry as well as shapes and angles while learning to fold and master origami!
• Challenge your students to build a tower out of matchsticks. Who can build the highest tower without it falling over? What strategy did they use and why did that work?
• The board game Battleship never gets old and is a fun way to change up a class.

Another excellent resource for blended lessons are our live lesson recordings, where students complete both Mangahigh activities and on-paper questions. Make sure to have a look at our YouTube Channel, where you will find lessons for ages 7 - 9 , 9 - 11 and 11-14. We hope it can inspire you!

We’d love to hear your lesson ideas so we can add them to the list! Send them to us via Twitter, Instagram, Facebook or email.