Do you have a stash of geoboards collecting dust in your closet? Well, get ready to pull them out as your students create images to celebrate Earth Day! This set of hands on math challenges will help your students compose shapes, count, add and create a simple bar graph. This is a great way to take a break from your normal math routine & focus on ways to care for our planet (while also weaving in some important math concepts ;)). And as a bonus, little learners can strengthen those fine motor skills too!

*Note: This post contains affiliate links which help support the work of this site. Read our full disclosure here.*

Materials Needed for Earth Day Geoboard Activity Pages:

• Geoboard for each student (you can grab a set on Amazon here if you don’t have any yet)
• Large bag of rubber bands in a variety of colors (you can likely find rubber bands at the dollar store, but for a good variety of colors, try this set or something similar)
• Printed student handouts (grab for free in my shop using the link at the end of the post)

How to Use the Earth Day Geoboard Pages:

This download includes 10 different images for students to create using rubber bands on their geoboard. To begin, students choose a picture and recreate it on their geoboard.

Images Included:

• Leaf
• Sun
• Flower
• Earth
• Trash Can
• Tree
• Lightbulb
• Plant
• Watering Can
• Faucet

Once they’ve created the image with rubber bands, they create a bar graph by counting the number of rubber bands they used for each color in their design.

Finally, they add all the values together to find the total number of rubber bands.

The activity is pretty straightforward once you print and gather all the materials.

A quick note: Color images AND black and white images are included, allowing you to choose how to present this to students.

If you have matching colors and you think it will be easier for students to see & recreate the pictures, give them the color pages and corresponding colors of rubber bands.

However, if you want this to be more open ended & allow for more creativity from your students, provide the black and white pictures.

Students can then choose their own colors to create each design and everyone’s bar graphs will be different.

One final note: You may also want to encourage students to create their own design for a particular object, rather than copying the design shown exactly.

This will challenge them to find another way to make a picture on their geoboard and see new ways to compose shapes.

For example, you may have them design their own flower and then compare it to the flower picture shown on the activity page.

Discussion Questions: Earth Day Math

As students create their designs, or after everyone is finished, it would be good to discuss the activity together, both to reflect on Earth Day and also tie in some math concepts. Here are some ideas to get you started:

• How does your picture relate to Earth Day? How does it remind you to care for our planet?
• Which picture used the greatest number of rubber bands?
• Which picture used the least?
• What shapes do you see in your picture?
• How many rectangles do you see? How many squares? How many line segments?

I hope this provides a fun Earth Day math challenge for your students! But if you’re wanting even more ways to combine math + Earth Day, check out the resources below. There’s something for a variety of ages!

• Earth Day Math Board Games (add, subtract, multiply & divide)
• Earth Day Color a Fraction Challenge
• 50+ Spring Math Activities for Grades K-8

And if you’re ready to try out the Earth Day Geoboard Activity, use the link below to grab it FREE in my shop! Enjoy!

{Click HERE to go to my shop and grab the FREE Earth Day Geoboard Activity for Grades K-2!}

The post {FREE} Earth Day Geoboard Activity – Grades K-2 appeared first on Math Geek Mama.

*Please Note: This post contains affiliate links which help support the work of this site. Read our full disclosure here.*

Materials Needed for the Earth Day Fraction Math Pack:

• Student handouts (included in the download)
• Crayons (or markers or colored pencils)
• Paper clip and paper fastener (or pencil) to assemble the spinner

The goal of these practice pages is to help students see connections between a fraction and a visual representation (which they will color), and then to see the connection between equivalent fractions.

Included in This Download: 

The first page is a simple worksheet which students color the fraction given a divided circle. The fractions on this page have denominators equal to the divisions in the circle.

For example, if it says “Color 1/2,” the circle is divided into 2 parts. If it says “Color 3/6,” the circle is divided into 6 parts.

There is then a discussion page with questions to get kids thinking and making observations about the fractions, and then some practice to compare the fractions they colored using “greater than,” “less than” or “equal to.”

Then there is another color the fraction page, but this time all the fractions are reduced. This requires students to see the connection between equivalent fractions, because though the circle may be divided into 6 parts, the question might say, “Color 1/3.”

Finally, there is a simple “Spin and Color” game for kids to play with a partner. This is meant to help reinforce the fractions and equivalent fractions they learned.

How to Play Fraction Spin and Color:

Lastly, this download includes a simple partner game to review. If you would like to keep this to use again, simply laminate and then let kids use dry erase markers that can be wiped off when they’re finished.

Before playing, you will need to assemble the spinner. I’m usually too lazy to find a paper fastener, so we just hold it in place with a pencil and spin a paper clip. Easy peasy.

Players then take turns spinning and coloring one of the earths to represent the fraction that they spin.

Just like the coloring pages, the earths are already divided into equal parts. Therefore, there are multiple possibilities. For example, if they spin 1/2, they could color half of the earth divided into 2, 4, 6, or 8 parts.

If they spin and there isn’t an option left for them to color (or they don’t know how to color that fraction with the given options), it’s the other player’s turn.

Once all the earths have been colored, the player who colored the most wins!

*Just be sure that each player chooses a different color so they know who colored what!

I hope you find this Earth Day fraction math pack to be a fun addition to your Earth Day plans!

{Click HERE to go to my shop and get a copy of the Earth Day Fraction Math Pack!}

Looking for more fraction practice? Try one of these:

• Fraction Puzzles
• Apples Equivalent Fractions Matching Game
• All About Fractions: Lessons and Games

The post Earth Day Color a Fraction Pack! {FREE} appeared first on Math Geek Mama.