Ideas for teaching math and physical education at the same time.
Number recognition: Add numbers to your "Twister" game board. Put one on yellow, two on red, three on blue, and so forth. Instead of saying, "put your right hand on yellow", you would say, "put your right hand on the number one". You can change to higher numbers once a child masters each number. This is also a passive way to stretch.
Reinforce their numbers: Play a game of "Simon Says". You can give instructions such as "Simon says jump five times", or Simon says spin three times. This is an important exercise because numbers will become more than shapes on paper, recited in a certain order.
Counting: A game of hopscotch will reinforce counting skills. You can also toss or roll a ball back and forth with a child or group of children, whoever gets the ball says the next number. On a rainy day, a game of hot potato is a great replacement.
Addition: While bowling, have the children add up the score. If there is an electronic score board, have them call out the answer before the computer can calculate it.
For small children, hide plastic eggs with numbers inside of them. Give the children 30 minutes to an hour to find them all. When they have found all the eggs, have them add up their points. This is a great way to get fresh air and light exercise as well.
Subtraction: While playing dodge ball, have each player start out with 100 points. If they are hit in the upper body they lose 2 points, if they are hit in the lower body, they lose 7 points, if they are hit in the head, and the person who threw the ball loses 2 points. (Children will be more likely to aim for the lower body with such a point structure.) Players are eliminated when they run out of points. Change the point value each time you play the game.
Multiplication: You can introduce multiplication by teaching children to skip count. A good way to reinforce skip counting is while jumping rope. You can make up a song for the kids to sing when they are jumping like "two, four, six, eight, jumping rope is really great! Ten, Twelve, Fourteen, Sixteen, Jumping makes me mean and lean!" Once they perfect skip counting a number, you can teach them the next higher number.
Advanced math concepts: Have children race each other and record their finishing times. Children can then calculate whose speed is what percentage of another persons speed. They can also assign handicaps, giving a head start of seconds or distance, and test their theories by running the race again. When the math is correct, they will finish the race at approximately the same time.
Teach odds in the same way. Have the children run 10 races and plot the results. They can then calculate how many times out of 10 each child won and they can further discuss what factors changed their odds of winning.
