Math Activities for Third Grade
- This activity allows students to practice collecting data and forming bar graphs. Give the students a list of their classmate's names and instruct them to find out in which month each individual was born. Let the students walk around the room in order to gather the information. Once their lists are complete, instruct the students to make a bar graph with the information. One axis of their graph should contain the names of the months with the other axis containing the numbers. The teacher then asks students questions about the birthdays that they can answer with information from their graphs.
- Around the world multiplication is an interactive math game that will allow students to practice their multiplication. In this game, the students are asked to stand by or sit on top of their desks. The teacher starts at one end of the room and asks each student in turn to answer a multiplication problem. If the student answers correctly he can remain standing by or sitting on his desk. If the student answers incorrectly he has to sit in his seat. The teacher continues to go around the room until only one child is left standing. All students are asked to stand up again, and the activity is started over.
- This activity gives students practice with calculating measurements. Each student is given a worksheet that contains a list of specific measurements in centimeters, inches, feet and yards. The students are then instructed to walk around the classroom and use their rulers to find items with equal measurements. Once the correct item is found, the children write the item's name next to the measurement on the worksheet. The teacher then checks the student's answers for accuracy.
- The calculating time math activity gives students practice telling and calculating time. The teacher begins the activity by telling the students a story about a fictional character and the events that happened to the character during the course of a day. The story starts off with the character waking up at a certain time. The students record this time on the top of their sheets. The teacher then adds events to the story and describes how much time elapsed between each occurrence. The students are then asked to calculate what time the next event occurred and write the answer down on their paper. For example, Tom woke up at 7:00 and arrived at school 90 minutes later. The students must calculate what time Tom arrived at school. Answers can be checked after each event or after the story is completed.