The internet is flooded with teaching ideas and other resources which can be overwhelming at times. This blog is dedicated to provide different resources like short and easy activities that you can do with your child at home or in the classroom.
Kids Love Pop Its!
It seems the latest craze related to fidget toys are Pop Its. You see them everywhere in different sizes, shapes, or colors. I have even seen them on notebooks or as purses. It’s something kids love so why not include as part of your learning routine? You can use it to help kids add, subtract, multiply, or divide. One way I love using these fidgets is by having students create arrays when they start learning multiplication. For example, for 5 x 4 the student would pop 5 bubbles going down and then pop 4 bubble in each row. You can also discuss commutative property by having the student turn the fidget to show 4 x 5. Then you can extent this activity and challenge students to see what other arrays they might be able to create to get a product of 20. For an extension to that, ask students if they can think of other ways to make 20 using other operations. Could they add 3 different numbers? Could they use subtraction somehow? What about division? This is a great way to engage with numbers:)