Monday, July 19, 2010

math baseball and football

Oh, this game has been used so many times. Math baseball and math football were favorites when I taught 2nd and 3rd grade and became an obsession for my students when I taught 6th grade. I pulled it out for my kids last week and quickly found it to be a hit here at our house as well. It's nice because it can be played with different ability levels at one time.

Here's how I played it with my little people:
I drew a baseball diamond on a large piece of paper. There is a spinner in the middle that has 1, 2, 3, 4 (meaning 1 base, 2 bases, 3 bases, and 4= home run) and two very small sections drawn on that mean "out." I printed out a skill sheet for each child at the appropriate level. The colored baseball players seen in the picture just represent the different teams. I also have a whole bunch of baseball cutouts that we use to keep score. You could certainly use dashes on a paper, or whatever. We use the baseball hat cutouts to be the players on the bases. You could use any colored markers.

I had each child work one problem on their page. The kids were divided into two teams. Then we went around in a circle and I checked each persons work. If they got it right (I was pretty leniant with making corrections) they got a spin. They could then move one of the hats to that base. Both teams can be on the bases at the same time. Lets say the red team had a player on third base and the next person on their team got a 2, they could either take the existing player home and then start another guy on 1st, or start a second player and put him on 2nd.

Here's a game I used in in the classroom: All my pieces are laminated and have magnets on the back. I always played on the chalkboard. I had all the kids work a problem that I wrote on the board or overhead. All kids worked the problem on their individual dry boards. After a minute or so, I asked someone what their answer was. If they got it correct, they got to spin the spinner and move a piece on the bases. If they got it wrong, I asked someone from the other team. We just kept going back and forth answering questions. I always solved (or had them) the problems on the overhead so everyone could see how it was worked properly. Occasionally, I had two or more levels of work going, using different colored papers. I used this most chapters to study before the test.

Math football: This is played very similarly to baseball. When the problems are answered correctly, the team spins. The 1 means 10 yards, 2- 20 yards, etc. One of the small sections on the spinner says 50. The football is started in the middle of a drawn football field. The lines are all drawn on for each 10 yards. The teams work moving the football back and forth until someone scores a touchdown.

The kids now want a soccer game. I think we can do that!

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