Help kids succeed in math with Crazy 8s Club

A few weeks ago I wrote about this crazy new math club I was volunteering to coach. The club is designed to get kids excited about math by having them participate in some crazy fun activities, all while exposing kids to math in unique ways.

What I love about the club is how easy it is to coach. Every week the kids get to build stuff, run and jump, make music, and make a mess – all with materials that are provided for you! The lessons are designed to be easy to follow and easy to present to the young kids. Each activity is fun and engaging as well.

Our Favorite ‘Lessons’

One of my favorite activities was the Bouncy Dice Explosion – I actually think that was everyone’s favorite, especially the Rock ‘n’ Roll Bingo! We were actually having so much fun that we didn’t want to stop when it was time to pack up and head home.

War of the Dice was fun too, I managed to snap a shot of one of the kids having fun trying to win her stickers! In the end, each child learned some math while playing (adding the dice together), and got to have fun earning stickers for their wins.

Lessons learned during Bouncy Dice Explosion: Adding and subtracting, counting, frequency, strategic thinking.

Fun Had: Countless!

Another favorite lesson was the Toilet Paper Olympics. What is not fun about shot-putting a roll of toilet paper?!

What about unrolling an entire roll to see how long it is? I bet the kids would never get to do that at home!

Lessons learned during Toilet Paper Olympics: Measurement of distance, estimations of length, and conversions.

Fun Had: Immeasurable!

All in all, there were eight lessons, one for each week. The fun sessions included:

Glow in the Dark Geometry
Let’s Get Loud
Time of Your Life
Toilet Paper Olympics
Spy Training
Flying Marshmallows
Zip Line Zoo
Bouncy Dice Explosion

While all of the sessions come with a complete lesson guide, you are free to adapt and change to suit your needs. For example, with the flying marshmallows we found it easier to use cotton balls since marshmallows would have just flown too far in a library setting.

What I really love about this though is that you do not have to be a whiz at math to help kids develop a love for all things math. The lessons and materials are provided, so all you have to do is let them see how fun these activities can be and how much fun math is!

After the first eight sessions, the fun can continue! A second and third set of lessons is already available so you can have your club running every semester, or even all year long! More sessions are being added so the math fun can never run out.

If you would like more info about Crazy8sClub or want to inquire about starting your own club, you can find everything you need here. You can even find a daily math problem to boost your own math prowess, or let your kids take a turn and see how much fun working on math together can be.

Math problem of the day

Before you head over to sign up to coach your own club (because I know you will want to get this going in your own neighborhood), check out this fun math problem pulled straight from the Bedtime Math site — see how well you and your family can do at solving this fruity problem.

Have you ever looked at an apple or banana from the store and noticed a sticker with a 4-digit number? Maybe a 4138 on a Granny Smith, or a 4432 on a pineapple? That number is a code telling stores all around the world exactly what kind of fruit or vegetable it is. They’re called Price Look-up Codes (PLUs), and they range from 3000 for Alkmene Apples to 4961 for Yellow Mangos (though they don’t run alphabetically — the list starts over at A more than once). Sure, a banana may look like a banana, but there’s more than one kind of banana, and stores sell different kinds to us for different prices. So they need to know which is which at the checkout counter. Next time you shop, take a look at the carrots or peppers you buy, and find out the codes for your favorite foods!

Wee ones: If you buy an apple, a banana, a pineapple, a pear, a kiwi, and a tangerine, how many fruits do you buy?

Little kids: If you buy 2 fruits, how many digits do their 4-digit codes have together? Bonus: If both codes have a 9 and a 7 in them, how many total different digits do they have?

Big kids: If your favorite kind of apple has code 4129 (a Fuji), and your next favorite has a code 10 more than that, what’s the other apple’s code? Bonus: There’s a type of apricot whose code has the same digits as your favorite apple in a different order. If that code is not quite 100 more, what does it have to be?

The sky’s the limit: If a code has a 1, 2, 3, and 4 in it, how many working codes can you make from those, given that all codes are between 3000 and 4961?

Find the answers here: Fun math fruit codes