Fun Math Activities for Middle School

Engage tweens with fun math activities for middle school. Math is an essential subject, and it’s important for tweens and teens to master the concepts in middle school math.

But math lessons can also be boring, especially when working on mastery review. Kids need to do more than work on math problems. So, it’s a good idea to make learning as interactive as possible.

Fortunately, there are plenty of engaging activities to help tweens learn math in creative ways. No matter the specific topic you’re studying, there’s an easy way to make lessons engaging.

From games and puzzles to hands-on projects, these activities will make it easier for middle schoolers to practice math in a unique, creative way.

Fun Math Activities for Middle School

What are fun math activities? They are fun, creative, and interactive ways of learning math. These fun ways to teach order of operations are a good example.

They can range from games, scavenger hunts, art projects, competitions, and exploratory projects. The possibilities are almost endless!

No matter the form, math activities get students off of the page and bring math to life in a real-world setting.

Ultimately, they can enhance the learning experience for all middle school kids!

What are the benefits of using math activities?

Math activities offer a valuable opportunity for middle school students to strengthen their math skills in a fun and engaging way.

Not only do they keep the topic interesting, they also offer some important educational benefits. 

By taking math from the pages of textbooks to engaging hands-on experiences, math-related activities help students explore concepts through experimentations, projects, and collaborative problem solving.

Activities like online math games for middle school offer kids a fun way to take the process from book-learning to real world application. Students of all grade levels not only gain a deeper understanding of math concepts but also learn to think critically.

Hands-on activities make math learning far less intimidating for kids and way more exciting!

How to Add Fun Math Activities to your Lesson Plan

Math activities can be a great way to engage and motivate middle school students, but you have to make time for them. It works best when you use them with a solid math curriculum, like CTCMath.

The truth of the matter is, most activities end up collecting dust on the shelf. To keep this from happening in your homeschool, use these practical tips for adding them to your lesson plans.

• Before starting the math lesson, take a few minutes to do a quick activity as a warm-up.
• If your tweens are getting overwhelmed or lose focus, take a brain break and play a fun game.
• Find an activity that goes along with the subject and use it along with the main lesson. These order of operations math task cards work well.
• Put aside the textbook for a day and let your tweens work on one of the many math projects for middle school instead.
• Play a math board game as a part of a family game night.

When choosing math activities for your lesson plans, make sure that the task is relevant and engaging.

Keep in mind that these don’t have to have fancy bells and whistles. Just use things that have open-ended questions that get kids thinking creatively.

And start small. There isn’t a need to pull out every math activity you own. Instead, choose one or two to begin with and set aside a few days and times per week dedicated to doing them.

With a few simple steps, math classes can be fun or even exciting!

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Math Activities for Middle School

The fun activities below provide invaluable learning experiences that are sure to make math exciting and enjoyable.

Middle School Math Games

Math-related games are amazing teaching tools.

With game-based learning, kids feel less pressure because they’re just focused on the fun. That makes it easier for kids to practice basic operations.

Choose from math board games, dice games, online games, printable games, and more.

Math Scavenger Hunts

Scavenger hunts are an awesome way to problem solve, practice math facts, and get kids thinking outside the box.

Make up math problems for your tweens to solve in order to find the clues that will lead them to their final destination.

Active Math Games

Get your tweens up and moving with some physical games.

Middle schoolers will love playing trashketball, math tag, and even musical chairs.

When you create your own sets of questions, games like these are a great addition to your review of important concepts.

Kahoot

Create a Kahoot that covers the topics you are studying. Kahoot is an interactive online game where students answer questions in real time on an electronic device.

Because you design the multiple-choice questions, it’s easy to tailor it to your child’s needs. It’s a great activity for math review, whether you use it in your math classroom or homeschool.

Logic Puzzles

Math is more than simply learning formulas. It’s also an opportunity to think critically and problem solve. That’s why I love logic games. They get kids thinking creatively.

Math crossword puzzles, minesweeper, Sudoku, elimination grids, and Kanoodle are a few for older students. You can also give them some word problems to work through.

Math Books

Use cool math books (not textbooks) to engage your middle schooler. There are a wide variety of choices.

Things like math mysteries, This Book Thinks You’re a Math Genius, and Math for Every Kid are fun to read and get kids thinking about math in a new way.

Comparison Shopping

Take a trip to the grocery store to work on math with your middle schooler. While shopping, have tweens use math to figure out unit rates to decide which item is the best buy.

Don’t want to take the time to go to the store? You can also do this at home by choosing a bunch of items to compare and giving your tween their sizes and prices.

It’s a fun activity that builds essential skills.

Measuring Volume

Have your kids use household items to measure volume.

Decide on what you want to measure (boxes, spheres, liquid, cylinders, etc.) and send them on a hunt around the house to find objects to use.

It’s a great way to show tweens how math is used in real life.

Kitchen Math

There are a number of math topics you can work on in the kitchen with your tweens.

Bake some bread or double up a cookie recipe to work on ratios.

Or use the smallest measuring tool when baking so kids have to convert the measurements. For example, let’s say a recipe calls for 1 cup of flour and 1/4 cup of sugar. Give your tweens a 1/8 measuring cup and have them do the conversions.

Paper Airplane Math

Paper airplanes are the perfect activity for kids to practice graphing.

Pull out a bunch of paper and have your tweens build a variety of airplanes. Then, as they throw them, collect the data and use it to create a graph.

Aside from graphing, it’s also a fun way to work on measurement, spatial reasoning, and averages.

These middle school math activities are a wonderful way to get tweens engaged in the subject and will definitely build your students’ understanding of various math topics.

It’s time to make math fun!

Do you use fun math activities with your middle schooler?