April 23rd is World Book Day, and to celebrate, we have prepared math activities for all ages! Reading is a fundamental tool in broadening our knowledge and stimulating our imagination and creativity. For this reason, we suggest one activity for the little ones and another one for the older kids: Math Bookmarks!
Math activity for children from 3 to 9 years old: Choose your character and turn them into a bookmark!
For the little ones, we suggest a geometric and manipulative activity. Notice that it works on a part of computational thinking, a key skill in breaking down complex problems into smaller components, developing algorithms to solve them and encouraging creativity. With this activity, we will work on:
- Abstraction, to ignore unnecessary details and generalize.
- The decomposition of complex problems into smaller parts.
- The algorithmic thinking necessary to interpret a series of ordered instructions that lead to a concrete and predictable result.
- Creativity and adaptation of representations.
Newt, Broo, Solver, Feebie, and Geo can’t wait to join you in the adventures in your books and stories!
Math activity for ages 9 and above: Discover your bookmark by making friezes!
For older children, we suggest an activity of making a bookmark with mathematical friezes. A frieze is a geometric composition that is created when figures or groups of figures are repeated in succession. That is, they are displayed following a pattern. With this activity, we will work on:
- Geometry through the discovery of patterns and symmetries.
- Visual perception and spatial comprehension.
- Creativity and imagination by trying to discover what the final composition will look like.
- Reasoning and argumentation through exploration, understanding and description of the mathematical properties and patterns we observe.
We encourage you to download the templates to carry out these activities and to share the final result on social media! We hope you enjoy it and that it helps you understand the importance of reading and mathematics in our daily lives, and that you never lose your place in the book you are reading!
Happy World Book Day!
