This has become one of our most popular tasks and we are hearing about all sorts of creative adaptations. Some youcubians have made grids of 400 and added dice, others have adapted it to let the grid represent 100%. Please post how you use this task with your students.

Games provide a fun environment for supporting children in building number fluency. As children learn to play the games, speed should not be the focus. Encourage strategy and ask students to explain their thinking.

In this class activity, students find the missing number to complete a number sentence while also seeing different representations made by other students.

This is a really nice task as it is open to everyone, can be solved in different ways and can also extend to work in combinatorics Ð a nice way of organizing counting. Ask students to work on this task in groups, and to display their results on posters. Often we name studentsÕ different approaches and strategies.

Leo the Rabbit has become a youcubed favorite. It is a great problem for using creativity to illustrate and justify student thinking and it leads to rich class discussion.

Many parents use Ôflash cardsÕ as a way of encouraging the learning of math facts. These usually include 2 unhelpful practices Ð memorization without understanding and time pressure. In our Math Cards activity we have used the structure of cards, which children like, but we have moved the emphasis to number sense and the understanding of multiplication without any time constraints.

In Mouse Count by Ellen Stoll Walsh, a hungry snake finds 10 mice on the grass and puts them into a jar. The last mouse cleverly sends the snake on a fruitless hunt for an even bigger mouse and the other mice tip the jar over and escape. In this activity, children investigate the different ways that they ten mice could be arranged when some are in the jar and some are on the grass.

This is a great primary activity from one of our Youcubians, Deb Morton. It encourages class participation and discussion as students explore equality as they move around the room. Deb says, ÒThe students have fun looking at what they did and then realize math is all around us and in our lives everyday. And at the end I have a carpet seating chart complete.Ó

In this task, students work together to create live data visualizations of a dataset about Marvel movies. Each student is given a data card that provides information about one movie, the studentÕs job is to play the part of Òdata pointÓ as the class works to physically organize themselves into ÔliveÕ visualizations of the data. The data provides opportunities for students to organize themselves into bar graphs, histograms, and scatter plots.

This is a task that combines art, mathematics and design. Students are asked to see and design optical illusions, think about the mathematics inside them and pose mathematical questions for their friends.

Students build and draw three-dimensional cubes made up of small unit cubes. Student study patterns by analyzing the number of sides painted of each unit cube, which made up the larger painted cube.

This is a youcubed favorite which comes from Mark Driscoll. The activity encourages students and teachers to engage in visual, creative thinking. We have coupled MarkÕs activity with asking students to reason and be convincing, two important mathematical practices.

Students will use technology to explore products and the patterns as they complete charts.

This activity allows students to explore how numbers are composed, by having them look at different ways of grouping them. There are many different strategies and methods students can use to come up with a solution. Students can use actual pennies, draw diagrams, and use charts to keep track of their findings. As students explore they will notice many different patterns in the numbers they are exploring.

This is a fun drawing activity that gives students an opportunity to represent their math facts.

This is a quick game that can be played to practice addition. It provides fun by tempting a player with making that next roll to get a higher score. Soft dice or an app to simulate a dice roll can make this a quiet activity for fun and practice.

HereÕs a game where students can color patterns in a hundred chart showing multiples of a number they have rolled.

This game provides students an opportunity to practice addition, subtraction, multiplication and division as they try to reach 100 on a number chart. The game can be modified by adding more dice or using dice with more than 6 sides. Students will have fun playing as well as making up their own rules for a new game.

This task comes from a book in a series of three books by Math Solutions, called Math for All: Differentiating Instruction. ItÕs a good way for students to experience different patterns on a number line. The focus is on patterns and provides students options for picking their own starting numbers. ItÕs great for building vocabulary and thinking mathematically.

This is a paper and pencil version of an old game. It is fun for young children and anyone can enjoy the game of chance mixed with the fun of finding a strategy. There is even more opportunity for conversation about odds and probability.