The Math Explorer: Games and Activities for Middle School Youth Groups

Here is a collection of creative, hands-on math activities designed to engage your after-school students in standards-based mathematics learning while also meeting your needs as a youth-group leader.

• You don't have to be a math wiz to lead these activities. Youth groups and families have tested each activity to ensure that it includes all the information you'll need to be successful.
• You'll easily have students playing, thinking, building, and experimenting with mathematics and how it works.
• You'll find advice on how to use each activity as well as simple, straightforward explanations of the mathematics involved. Additional information provides historical background and science connections to give you the option of extending the activities.

The Math Explorer was developed by the folks at the Exploratorium— San Francisco's acclaimed hands-on museum of science, art, and human perception. The activities in this book apply the hands-on teaching methods that work so well in science to teaching and learning about mathematics. This collection of games, puzzles, experiments, and projects provides appealing opportunities for practicing a variety of mathematics skills—from problem solving and graphing to fractions and ratios—and you can do all of them on a shoestring budget!