Football Math
Football is all about math. Players’ rankings, points, yards, penalties — it’s all numbers. Even the music played by the band is full of quarter notes and eighth notes. You can just pull examples from football when you’re using a football theme, or when you have a class that’s excited about football. You can save time, instead, by using what’s already available.
Here’s a roundup of football themed math games and puzzles. We’ve scoured the web and found you all the good stuff. Most are interactive — we’ve told you when they’re not.
Online resources:
- Tackle Math Ball
- basic calculations
- lots of good football math from NCTM
- a hands-on in-class math football game
- math problems based on actual football
- decimals place value
- adding fractions — just like the previous game, but with different problems
- a simple online game for integers — noisy, but you can turn off the sound
- a DIY board game in a PDF file
- CoolMath’s football games
- an extended word problem on yardage — use the numbers from any game to repeat the exercise
- a clever use of a football field thought problem to illustrate Pythagorean theorem
- an advanced mathematical puzzler
Books:
- an enormous PDF file from the Pro Football Hall of Fame with lots of football math.
- Fantasy Football and Mathematics: A Resource Guide for Teachers and Parents, Grades 5 and Up
- Football: The Math of the Game
October Bulletin Boards
If you do Halloween in your classroom, Halloween is a great bulletin board theme for October. There’s a new Happy Halloween Bulletin Board from Susan Winget:
We like the cheerful retro look.
Eureka has a new Halloween bulletin board set with the Peanuts characters:
If Halloween isn’t a good choice for your classroom, there are plenty of classic autumn symbols that make great bulletin boards.Fall leaves are easy and enduring, with ready-made options from Trend’s Disney-like Big Oak Tree Bulletin Board Set to Scholastic Reading Genres Tree.
Pumpkins are always popular. The new Teachers Friend Pumpkin Puzzle Bulletin Board Set has photo pumpkins, including a big one cut into puzzle pieces. Scholastic Pumpkin Patch Accent Punch-Outs includes lots of shapes and sizes,with pleasantly sinuous vines. Carson Dellosa Pumpkin Patch Bulletin Board is a D.J. Inkers design with a scarecrow and mouse as well as pumpkins.
Carson-Dellosa has a new Owl design:
Teacher’s Friend Whooo Are You? has slightly more realistic owls.
Prefer DIY? Here’s our monster bulletin board, for some slight spookiness without an overt Halloween theme.
International Talk Like a Pirate Day
Avast, me proud beauties! Are your classrooms seaworthy? Today is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and I know you won’t want to miss it.
Our Pirate theme page has lots of links and resources.
It’s too late for bulletin board suggestions, so let’s jump right into online resources:
- The Offical Site.
- The Pirate Translator.
- The Pirate Name Generator (mine is Aetheflaed Tarred Tongue, and I dare ye to tell me yours, me hearties!)
- A collection of pirate jokes, and a set of pirate haiku verses.
- A pirate glossary to get you started.
- Pirate lesson plan collection.
We’ll also give you our Pirate Thesis worksheet for free in honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day. It’s a worksheet from our forthcoming Pirate Adventure writing unit. Double up on adjectives, growl a little, and shout “Shiver me timbers!” now and then, and you’ll be set.
Make a Football Cake!
Celebrate Fall in the Classroom!
Autumn is filled with wonderful celebrations!
- September is classical music month; celebrate with lesson plans on Handel, or Peter and the Wolf.
- The first Monday in September is Labor Day.
- September 7 is Google Commemoration Day.
- September 8 is National Literacy Day.
- September 13 is Programmers Day. It’s also International Chocolate Day. Clearly, this is the day to give chocolate to programmers.
- September 14 is National Anthem Day, the anniversary of “The Star Spangled Banner”
- September 15 to October 15 is Hispanic Heritage Month.
- September 16th is Mexican Independence Day.
- September 17th is Constitution Day.
- September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
- September 21 is International Day of Peace and World Gratitude Day. Sometimes it’s the first day of fall.
- September 22 is Elephant Appreciation Day.
- September 24th is National Punctuation Day.
- September 26 is Johnny Appleseed’s Birthday.
- October 3 is Techies Day.
- October 12 is Columbus Day (may be observed on the nearest Monday).
- October 23 is Mole Day.
- October 24 is United Nations Day.
- October 25 is World Pasta Day.
- October 31 is Hallowe’en.
- November is Native American Heritage Month.
- November is Good Nutrition Month.
- November 3 is Sandwich Day.
- November 4, ironically, is National Candy Day.
- November 5 is Guy Fawke’s Day or Bonfire Night.
- November 11 is Veterans Day.
- The fourth Thursday of November is Thanksgiving.
Every day can be a party!
Weather Lesson Plans
Weather affects us all, and it’s often in the news these days. Here are some online and print resources for a study of the subject, as well as some favorite lesson plans for introducing weather concepts. At the end of the page, you’ll find a thought-provoking video on the effects of changing weather patterns around the world.
Basic online sources:
- Weather.com’s interactive weather map is an excellent source of current weather data. The Weather Channel has a kids weather page more suited to the youngest students. Weatherspark is our first choice if you want to focus on visual literacy — interpreting graphic representations of data. They have the best charts.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration goes into much more detail. Their education portal has resources ranging from downloadable PDF posters and brochures to slide shows and informational pages. A timely example is their hurricane safety brochure, which presents essential safety measures with a quiz page. There’s also NOAA for Kids.
- NASA is our other favorite online weather info source. They have satellite images of various kinds of weather and great info on weather satellites.
Weather lesson plans:
- Wind Lesson Plans
- Heat Lesson Plans
- Rainbow Lesson Plans
- Snow Lesson Plans
- Online weather module for middle school
Add some books:
- Rain, by Manya Stojic, begins with a parched African landscape. Kids will feel the suspense and excitement as the rain comes.
- The Kids’ Book of Weather Forecasting has lots of hands-on activities.
- Weather Words and What They Mean by Gail Gibbons is a perfect example of her fun and informative style.
- Flash, Crash, Rumble, and Roll is a fact-filled easy reader about storms.
- Hurricane & Tornado is from Dorling Kindersley, so you know it’s a visually stimulating book with lots of information.
- Janice VanCleave’s Weather: Mind-Boggling Experiments You Can Turn Into Science Fair Projects is the perfect next step once you’ve gotten the basic information.
Teaching resources:
- Weather Thematic Unit
from Teacher Created is for younger students.
- Learning Resources – Spotlight On Science Wild Weather Kit has hands-on fun for elementary level.
- Learning Resources Weather Tracker will jazz up morning weather reports for elementary and up.
Some of our favorite lesson plans for studying weather:
- Chart the weather. Use your calendar and TCR’s Weather Stickers
- Connect weather and preparation in the most basic terms by dressing Carson-Dellosa’s Weather Frog or Scholastic’s Weather Panda in suitable gear each day.
- Make a weather lab. The Franklin Institute has full instructions. If building the lab doesn’t appeal to you, you can use Thames & Kosmos Little Labs Weather Science kit. Like all T&K products, it’s thorough and well-made. The Capsela Weather Station is another economical option.
- Climate change can be an emotional and political topic, but there’s not much point in ignoring it. Check out our climate change lesson plans and our Arctic Triptych unit for activities about how climate change affects weather and thus the people and other living things in the world. Or visit The Ripple Effect to learn about how changes in global weather patterns affect women in developing countries. The video is a thought provoking choice for visual literacy lessons.
