Looking for an alternative to math worksheets?
Fingertips, stamp pads, paint, and paper make it quick and easy to provide your students with a different kind of math experience. The math skills taught or reviewed can be varied but the ones I’ve showcased below using fingertip math are pattern, number sense, estimation, and area.
If you’re presenting these activities at a holiday time, such as Valentine’s Day, stick to traditional colors.
Materials
Gather together:
- 8.5″ x 2″ strips of paper, stiffer than printer paper works the best
- Pink, purple or red stamp pads (these are best for faster drying) OR
- Student watercolor paints ( When doing this activity, I put tape over some colors to help the students to remember to use only two or three colors)
- Paper towels or tissues to wipe fingers
- Washable fine tip markers
- Clean water to wash finger
Demonstrate
- Choose a strip of paper.
- Think out loud about what kind of pattern you’re going to make. “I think I’ll make an AB repeating (or a red, pink, red, pink…) pattern. I’ll choose two colors and use a different finger for each color. “
- Dip fingers in paint or stamp pad and print your strip
- Optional - Have a dry sample and put a different face on each one with a felt marker.
AAB Pattern
Number Sense
How many ways can you make 4?
Can you show me how to make 4 with two colors?
More than, fewer than
- Give students a strip of paper.
- They make fingerprints
- Then they decide where to cut their strip into two pieces so one side has more fingerprints and the other side has fewer fingerprints.
- Students count and print the number on each side.
Math without worksheets - estimation & area
This can be done with any holiday shape. The sample is for Valentine’s Day.
Gather:
- Pencils or markers
- A variety of small pink hearts, 2″, 3″
- Red or pink stamping pads
- Chart or recording sheet for students (see below for example)
Children:
- choose a small heart shape
- estimate how many fingerprints they will have to stamp to fill the heart
- print their guess on the back of the heart
- turn heart over and stamp fingerprints to fill the heart.
Next, the children:
- look at the back of their heart and print their estimation number under “My guess ?”
- attach the heart to the chart or recording sheet
- count the fingerprints
- print the number under the “I counted” row
- attach the heart to the chart or recording sheet
Classroom setup
Moving away from using worksheets and towards more hands-on experiences can be overwhelming when you have 20+ students in your class. If your classroom is set up for working in groups at tables the activities can be a whole class activity, but if not, I recommend using center times and having 8 to 10 students at a time completing the activities.
Using fewer worksheets
If you’d like to teach with fewer worksheets, you may be interested in my e-book, “Challenging Children to Investigate with Everyday Things”.
The e-book shows you how to use common objects to expand your math and science programs and contains 39 detailed activities. It helps you focus your students on investigation, observation and inquiry. 50 recording sheets are included, making it easy for children to share their new knowledge.
Read more here…