Mrs. Brandi Supernovich, a sixth-grade teacher at Penn Middle School strives to always find ways to keep her students engaged during math class. With the help of DonorsChoose (a crowdfunding resource for teachers), she raised funds to purchase giant games which she uses to merge math lessons with having fun.
In one activity, Mrs. Supernovich color-coded the ends of Jenga blocks and made task cards in coordinating colors that contain math problems. Then, when a student solves a problem (for example, on a red task card), he/she must then pull a red Jenga block. There are similar activities using giant Connect 4, Tic-Tac-Toe, and Yahtzee sets.
“Having a variety of games and activities allows us to set up multiple stations in the classroom that the students can rotate through while continuing to practice their math concepts,” said Mrs. Supernovich. She adds, “After a long school year of Covid restrictions, and students spending a lot of their time in their seats behind computer screens, it is nice to see the students smiling and having fun with their classmates while learning.”