Mathematics Activities for the Second Grade Classroom

Second grade students are just starting to understand the concept of money. Divide students into groups and give each group a deck of cards and a pile of coins to play this fun money game. Have students take turns picking a card from the top of the deck. Then have them take the number of coins that correspond to that card. For example, if a student chooses a “4,” he would take four pennies. If a student chooses a Jack, he would take a dime and a penny. Students go around in a circle and continue to add to their pile of coins as necessary. The student who gets fifty cents first wins!

To get your students interested in number patterns, try writing the beginnings of some addition and subtraction patterns on the board. At first, you might want to stick with only one, using examples such as the following:

· 2, 5, 8, 11…

· 24, 22, 20, 18…

After they’re used to this, though, try a pattern that uses both addition and subtraction:

· 2, 5, 3, 6, 4, 7…

· 24, 22, 26, 24, 28, 26…

You can encourage them to find the next number of the pattern as quickly as possible. Afterwards, discuss the different properties you can find within each pattern. For example, some patterns may seem to repeat themselves. Others may be consistently moving up or down. Have students come up with their own patterns and present them to the class.

Have students complete several different activities for 60 seconds each, such as jumping rope, doing jumping jacks, and bouncing a ball. Draw a table on the board displaying how many times they could complete each activity in a minute. Then have them compare the values by asking questions like “You bounced a ball more times than you did jumping jacks. How many more times?” or “How many jumping jacks do you think you could do in two minutes?”