3 Back-to-School Ideas for Middle School Math

The first days of school should be spent learning names, building relationships with students, and going over classroom expectations. Are you wondering how to sneak some math in there…just a little bit? If you’re looking to incorporate fun math activities into the first week of school, check out the ideas below.

Math Icebreakers

You know the classic Bingo icebreaker where students have to find someone in the room with a certain quality? Maybe someone with a cat, or someone with red hair? Why not try math icebreakers instead? You’ll get students talking, activate their prior knowledge, challenge them with content they’ll learn later this year, and as a bonus – you’ll get some group formative data that helps you understand your students’ readiness. Can you say secret pre-test?

These icebreakers are available for sixth, seventh, and eighth grades, each aligned to the Common Core State Standards. The problems include prerequisite skills for each grade as well as some stretch skills they may be able to figure out based on prior knowledge.

Preparation required: Purchase, print, and go.

What Number am I?

You’ve probably played the games Hedbanz or Heads Up before. Have you ever thought to math-ify them? Write numbers, expressions, equations, or even math vocabulary on the cards and have students ask each other yes-or-no questions until they figure out what’s on their own card. If your goal is for students to meet each other, you may choose to limit how many questions they can ask any one person before moving on. This will make sure students are talking to multiple classmates.

I’m planning to play this game during the first week of school with my seventh graders. Our first unit is integer operations, so our cards will contain positive and negative integers, plus some fractions and decimals. Our plan is to get students asking questions like “Is it a whole number?” and “Is it a positive number?” before they even know what the word integer means.

Preparation required: Write numbers or terms on index cards or sticky notes. You’ll want about twice as many cards as students.

Math Scavenger Hunt

Scavenger hunts can inspire students to work together as a team to achieve a goal – a great skill to have if you plan to do group work throughout the year. If your students are as competitive as mine, they’ll love trying to be the first team to finish! Here are some ideas of the different types of scavenger hunts you could do in your classroom:

• Traditional scavenger hunt. Hide clues or items around the school or campus. You could hide math tools like calculators or protractors, or have your students solve math problems in order to find the next clue. This type of scavenger hunt can be particularly great for first-year middle schoolers learning their way around a new school.
• Syllabus scavenger hunt. Going over the syllabus doesn’t have to be boring. Break your students into teams and give them questions they can answer by reading the syllabus. What is the test re-take policy? How many points is homework worth? What percent of your grade is a quiz worth?
• Math scavenger hunt. Help students see that math is all around them. Complete this scavenger hunt with a newspaper or magazine (or a trip to the school library). Depending on your upcoming math topics, you may have students look for something more specific, like particular angle measures or types of graphs.

Students completing a math scavenger hunt in my classroom.

Students completing a math scavenger hunt in my classroom.

Preparation required: You’ll need to make your own scavenger hunt for a traditional scavenger hunt or syllabus scavenger hunt. For the math scavenger hunt, just purchase, print and go (as long as you have some newspapers or magazines handy)!