How Can I Include Math In My Child's Summer?
Use the activites below to maintain and enhance your child's math skills. Sign your initials by each activity your child finishes or
tries for at least 10 minutes. At the end of the summer send this form to your child's teacher to show your child's work.
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Suggested summer math activities for students entering 5th grade
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Help your child make half-drawings and hold a hand-held mirror up to complete the drawings, or hold them up to a mirror (Examples: draw half
a face, half a heart, half a house, half a letter, half a person, half a butterfly, etc. then make a complete drawing using the reflection in the
mirror).
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Look with your child at the distance from your home to nearby locations on a map (the store, library, school, etc.) and measure these in
kilometers. Ask them to convert these to meters (1 km = 1000m). What is the difference between the closest and farthest locations?
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Have your child use a ruler to draw two crossing lines that form an 'L' shape. Number the corner of the 'L' as 0. Have them mark every
quarter inch going away from the 0 and label the marks 1, 2, 3, … 19. Then use the ruler to connect all the pairs of numbers that add to 20.
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Have your child find how tall your family would be if you all stood on each other's heads, and represent this in cm, m, and km.
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Play the Higher or Lower decimal game with your child. One player thinks of a secret decimal number and the second player makes guesses.
The first player says, "higher" or "lower" to each guess until the secret decimal is guessed.
Ask your child to show what fraction of a dollar a group of dimes is. Let them make change for the dimes using pennies. Then have them find
the fraction of a dollar the group of pennies is.
Go on a right angle scavenger hunt with your child (books, tables, appliances, doors, walls, windows, etc.).
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Challenge your child to figure out how many people of their weight could fit in an elevator (standard limit of about 2,500 pounds or 1,100
kilograms).
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Go on an angle scavenger hunt with your child. Try to find all the angles that are a multiple of 15 degrees between 0 and 180 (Example, a
closed book is 0, a pencil point is 15, a slice of pizza is 45, a window is 90, an open laptop is 120, an open book is 180, etc.).
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Play Guess my Rule with your child. Say a list of numbers where the numbers follow a pattern. Have your child guess what rule you were
thinking of (Example: 2, 5, 8, 11… Add three each time. 1, 2, 4, 8, 16… Multiply by two each time. etc.). Switch roles.
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Draw 9 dots in a 3 by 3 square for your child. Then challenge them to connect the dots using 4 straight lines without picking up their pencil.
While traveling, look for two digit numbers with your child. When you find one, challenge your child to find all pairs of numbers that multiply to
give you that number (Example 15 is 5 x 3 or 1 x 15. 42 is 1 x 42, 2 x 21 or 3 x 14, or 6 x 7.).
Ask your child to read nutrition labels and calculate the calories per container by multiplying the Servings per Container by the Calories per
Serving.
Challenge your child to figure out how many times they could stack and unstack six cup into a triangle in one hour if they did not get tired and
slow down.
Have your child compare home prices in real estate ads. Which is most and least expensive? Ask them to describe what attributes they
would like in a home and look for the most and least expensive homes that match. Find the difference between the most and least expensive
homes.
Go on an acute angle scavenger hunt with your child (pencil point, clock hands, leaf veins, tree branch and trunk above, church steeple, bird
beak, tongs, stapler, etc.).
Time how long it takes your child to run to the corner and back in minutes and seconds. Ask them to convert this time into just seconds.
Go on an obtuse angle scavenger hunt with your child (clock hands, tree branch and trunk below, almost open book, house roof, stop sign,
open door, open laptop, etc.).
Play The Smallest Product with your child using a deck of cards with face cards removed. Deal four cards to each player and have each
player try to make the smallest number they can by multiplying two two-digit numbers.
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Have your child estimate how much it would cost to buy one of everything on the menu at a fast food restaurant.
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Play Simon Says with your child using degree measures (Example: Simon says make a 45 degree angle with your arms).
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Help your child design a symmetric flag or logo for a group or club they are involved in.
Eat something that is easily represented with a fraction (pizza, cake, brownies, etc.). Have your child represent the amount they eat with a
fraction (3 slices that are each 1/8th makes 3/8ths).
While at a fast-food restaurant or looking at a menu, challenge your child to find out how much liquid they would get if they ordered one of
every flavor of drink in every size.
Cook or bake, having your child double or triple the recipe, especially with fractions (Example: Double 1/3 cup of chocolate chips to get
2/3rds. Triple 1/4 teaspoon of salt to get 3/4ths.).
Ask your child to find out: What happens when they multiply or divide a number by 10? (use a calculator and look for patterns)
Have your child compare prices of items on a menu at a restaurant or looking at a take-out menu. Which is the most expensive? Which is
the least?
Have your child look around your home for a two-digit number. When they find one, have them count out that many counters (beans, beads,
noodles, Legos, pennies, etc.) How many ways can they arrange the counters such that they all fit perfectly into a rectangle (Example: 36
beads in 3 rows of 12 beads each, 2 rows of 24 beads each, etc.)?
Find a picture of a face in the newspaper or in a magazine. Have your child cut it in half down the middle, and draw the second half so that it
is symmetric (like being reflected in a mirror). Compare the drawing to the original second half of the face. Do they look the same? Was the
face symmetric?
How Can I Include Math In My Child's Summer?
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Suggested summer math activities for students entering 5th grade
While eating animal crackers, m&ms, or other mixed snacks, discuss relative amounts of snacks with your child (Examples: I have three times
as many giraffes as you. You have twice as many blue m&ms as I do. Which animal do you have four times as many of as I do?)
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Go on a symmetry scavenger hunt around your home with your child (sinks, reflections, people, architecture, binder clip, purse, coffee mug,
pairs of shoes and socks, clothing, chairs, tables).
Have your child find the area of a standard 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper.
Challenge your child to think of as many words that are symmetric (known as ambigrams) as they can. They look the same or transform into
another word, when a mirror is held either horizontally (Examples: WOW, MOM, HI, BEE, COB, etc.) or vertically (Examples: TOOT, WOW,
MOM, YAY, MUM, etc.).
Have your child make a dot plot displaying the lengths of the colored pencils or crayons in a box.
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Have your child start or update a ledger to keep track of their money.
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Have your child predict how long it takes you to run around the building you live in 5 times, then time them.
Play Fraction Frenzy with your child. On each player's turn, deal them six cards (face cards excluded). They must create three fractions and
place them in order from largest to smallest. Check with a calculator, and if they are correct, they earn a point.
Have your child start or continue a reading log that includes time read. Figure out their reading rate in pages read per hour.
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Find coupons in the grocery ads. Have your child write each of the cent amounts as decimal amounts of a dollar. Figure out what fraction of
a dollar this is (Example: "Save 75 cents." is $.75 or 3/4 of a dollar.).
Have your child compare the cost of a combo meal and buying the items separately.
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Have your child measure the angles of quilt patterns, chips, envelopes, lampshades, cardboard boxes, etc.
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Design a treasure hunt/treasure map for or with your child that uses angle measures to find the hidden treasure.
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After grocery shopping, look at the final bill. Challenge your child to figure out your weekly per person spending rate for groceries.
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Have your child find the total weight of all the items on one shelf in your pantry by reading the weights off the packages.
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Have your child fold paper in half and cut out shapes, unfolding to see the symmetric shape (Example: cut half of a heart into the folded paper
and unfold to see the heart.). Can they make a square? A rectangle? A star? A circle? The first letter of their name?
Give your child an allowance that is written in decimal form. Ask what fraction of a dollar the allowance is.
While playing cards, have your child figure out how many cards each player will get and how many will be left over (Example: 52 divided by 3
is 17 remainder 1 (two players get 17 cards and one gets 18)).
Challenge your child to write their name correctly while looking at the reflection in the mirror. Turn the paper and try it again.
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Challenge your child to find how much wallpaper would be needed to put wallpaper the entire wall area of the bathroom.
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Ask your child to find out: How long is their pace? (walk across a room and divide the inches walked by the number of steps taken)
Today, while at the store with your child, look at the volume of a yogurt container or carbonated beverage from a six-pack. Find the total
volume of the six-pack, and change units if necessary.
Go on a symmetry scavenger hunt walk outside with your child (people, leaves, butterflies, insects, architecture, animals, etc.).
Go on a right triangle scavenger hunt with your child (diagonally cut sandwich, roof truss, ladder against a wall, telephone pole tension cable,
etc.).
Help your child find out: How many seconds are in a day?
Go on a parallel and perpendicular line scavenger hunt with your child (edges of a piece of paper, edges of walls, edges of boxes, edges of
books, edges of refrigerators, railroad tracks, road lines, telephone wires, telephone poles, sidewalk cracks, sports fields lines, etc.).
Have your child create a pie chart showing how their time is used today. The whole circle (360°) is 24 hours, so each fourth of the circle (90°)
is 6 hours. 1 hour is 1/6th of that or 15°.
Have your child figure out how many feet a marathoner runs in one race by converting miles to feet. (A marathon is 26.2 miles, and there are
5280 feet in a mile).
Have your child estimate how many 4 square foot sections of sod would be needed to cover a nearby lawn.
Have your child make horizontal folds on a piece of paper to create 2, 3, 4, or 5 equal sections. Have them shade in some of the sections
and state what fraction this represents. Then have them use vertical folds to create 2 or 3 equal sections. Examine what fraction of the
whole is now shaded. Relate this fraction to the first fraction.
Play The Biggest Number with your child using a deck of cards with face cards removed. Deal four cards to each player and have each player
try to make the biggest number they can using addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
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