Fun Ways to Teach Math Online

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Today’s generation of kids thrive off being online. For parents and instructors, integrating the Internet into a child’s math education opens up new learning possibilities which can be more appealing and intuitive to children as compared to a traditional classroom setting.
There are plenty of fun ways to teach math online, whether you want to spice up an online lecture by introducing an interactive activity, or you’d like your students to be a little more entertained during their study time by playing math games and puzzles. Let’s review a few of the online math teaching methods that you can use.

Interactive Activities

While your students may not be physically present, they can still enjoy a high amount of interaction with their peers and instructor if you know a few effective tools.

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For a synchronous activity, you can devote part of your class time to a group discussion. Split your students into breakout rooms on apps like Zoom or Microsoft Teams and task them with solving a particularly difficult word problem. Involve them further by using their names for characters and having fun with the story.
In tutoring or teaching individuals or smaller groups, you can hold more immersive scenarios. Say you’re on the topic of perimeters and areas. As class begins, ask them to design their very own statue or building using shapes like circles and squares, and then reveal that they should measure its length and width, and find its perimeter.
Alternatively, you can post tricky or thought-provoking questions and scenarios on platforms like Edmodo, Microsoft Teams or Schoology and prompt your learners to discuss how to solve each problem, rewarding them for the quality of their responses as well as getting the answer right.
You can also challenge kids with finding math at work in the real world. Before you begin your lecture on the topic of Fibonacci numbers, for instance, you can task kids to bring an object or photograph of an object that displays the Fibonacci series at work, such as a flower, a leaf or a snail shell, and award them for the effort.

Mini-Contests

Competitions are a classic way to get groups of kids engaged in their lessons, especially if it’s designed to be challenging enough to require their concentrated effort. You can make this the main attraction of a class, or simply a high-energy part of the lecture.
There are two contest modes for you to consider – a free-for-all, where every student competes individually, or a team-based contest. Do note that team activities are great for encouraging camaraderie, especially if students can’t see each other face-to-face.
You can make a lot of learning activities competitive. Task them with making a short, comedic skit with their team to demonstrate the arithmetic operations or fractions, or hold a tournament where a pair of students from opposing teams answer a tough question, slowly eliminating those who get wrong answers until the last one standing remains to claim the victory for their team.
Do your kids enjoy playing online games? Well, math games can be a little cheesy, but if you make a little competition out of playing them – like challenging students to see who gets the most points in a math game or puzzle on the web – kids will feel much more invested in enjoying them. Try Kahoot for preparing competitive quizzes.
Contests should, naturally, have a reward that’s enticing enough for kids to be involved in playing. You shouldn’t have to spend actual money, however. Focus on fun stuff. You might offer the winners of one contest the chance to select your background image for the next class (within reason), or design collectible badges or stickers for them to redeem at the end of the semester for bonus points.

Online Math Games

You won’t ever run out of new math games to find, but the tricky part is in finding the right type of game to both entertain and intellectually stimulate your students’ minds. Indeed, games are the first thing many instructors think of when considering fun ways to teach math online.

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Many math games can seem repetitive by design - they are, after all, still meant to help kids practice various math skills - but the hidden genius to them lies in getting a child immersed in their setting and story.
Say you have students who are fascinated with everything related to space. You should accordingly find math games revolving around space-based topics, such as exploring the galaxy through the power of math, or solving equations to power up a cannon that destroys dangerous asteroids.
For your first class with a group of students, you can casually ask each of them to choose a favourite topic out of a variety of choices. Dinosaur-lovers can be grouped together to enjoy dino-themed games, while kids who are fascinated with zombies get to play zombie math games. This can also double as a great opportunity for kids with similar interests to make friends.