Thursday, April 07, 2016

Natural Light Collaborative Math Activity for Kids

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The best part about Spring finally arriving here is the sunshine. Lots and lots of sunshine. So one morning, the boys and I started exploring making numbers in the natural light that came streaming into our living room. Of course, when you have a child with hypernumeracy, things evolve quickly into making math questions. After all, he spends a good portion of his day (probably 90%) saying, "I have a math question for you." So it is no surprise that this natural light collaborative math activity would be a hit with my kids.

But what I particularly love about this math activity for kids is that it encourages social skills like collaboration and teamwork. In order to build a math equation that's easy to read in the sunlight, you need at least two sets of hands to hold up the numbers. So the kids and I had to work together to build the equations.

Natural light collaborative math activity for kids from And Next Comes L

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Collaborative Math Activity for Kids Using Natural Light

For this activity, you'll need:

 Let the kids build whatever number (or letter or shape or design).

Exploring math through natural light from And Next Comes L

Exploring math through natural light from And Next Comes L

Then encourage them to hold it up into the sunlight without their body getting in the way. This part took a bit of getting used to and I had to give the kids frequent reminders to adjust their bodies so that their numbers could be seen.

Making numbers in natural light from And Next Comes L

Once they get the hang of how to project their numbers into the sunlight, start collaborating together to make math questions. We did lots of addition, subtraction, and multiplication questions. I took lots of photos to show you the types of questions we came up with.

Working on math problems in natural light from And Next Comes L

Practicing addition using natural light - fun math activity for kids from And Next Comes L

Practicing addition using natural light - fun math activity for kids from And Next Comes L

Practicing subtraction using natural light - fun math activity for kids from And Next Comes L

This activity can be done individually, but, as you can see, things get a bit squishy and it's hard to tell exactly what the math question is. So it's best to do it as a collaborative project!

Working on math problems in natural light from And Next Comes L

This math activity was engaging on so many levels. It worked on math skills, fine motor skills, social skills such as teamwork, and more. Here's a video to show you how engaging it was! I was multitasking by filming and holding up a plus sign so things got a bit shaky at spots...but you get the idea!


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Natural light collaborative math activity for kids from And Next Comes L