Fun Math Activity - Socks in the Box

Fun math activity? Do they even exist? In my family they do!

Just because I always struggled with math (and I think it was because it was so stressful to me) I have a strong responsibility feeling to make math fun, incorporated with plenty of games and educational activities.

Finding opportunities to teach young kids math is not hard. They are everywhere. Even in a shoe box.

That's right! We did a fun math activity with the shoe box and some socks.

Jump to:

• Fun math activity preparation
• Now you ready for the rules of the game
• Math activity

Fun math activity preparation

1. Get the box ready. Larger shoe box would do well in this game. Divide the inside of it into 3 parts by placing pieces of cardboard.
2. Mark the slots with the numbers: 1, 2 and 3. (This can be done by a child).
3. Decorate the box if you want.

4.    Make small balls out of socks: put 2-3 child size socks together, and wrap them inside of another small sock. We found that sock balls are softer than any other real balls.

5.    Get the chart for keeping up the scores.

Now you ready for the rules of the game

• all players take turns throwing socks into the box.

• if your ball falls into slot Nr 1 you get 1 point, if Nr 2 - you get 2 points and if 3 - you get 3 points.
• obviously,  the goal is to get as many points in 10 throws that each players has.
• the child should be in charge of the chart. It's the most fun that way. Writing numbers, adding scores will boost up the competition.

Math activity

Every time a player gets a score it needs to be added to the previous score. For example, if I had total score of 5 and I just hit 3, the number 8 will go on the chart.

This particular part was little bit hard for my preschooler to understand. I explained that this is how the scores are written and calculated in real games like basketball and football. However, after few rounds, she got the system and was enjoying the game.

I will tell you the biggest difference between learning math and fun math activity. Learning math will teach you math (maybe not in a fun way, not right away and will not keep you interested for a while). Learning math during fun activity will also teach your child math, BUT it will keep a child motivated to do more math and it will encourage him find different counting opportunities. My daughter was counting all afternoon, she remembered some of the score combinations and she wanted to make sure she counted them right.

Enjoy Math! It's so much fun...