Fraction Treasure Hunt

Sensory Box activity / fraction game from FlapJack Educational Resources! Kids hunt for fraction tokens (reducing, improper to mixed, or fractions to decimal). Check out the post here for instructions and free recording sheets!

Note: You can fill your sensory container with anything to hide your tokens. Kids dig and try to uncover the hidden treasure! I recommend using one large, deep container for a math station.

Musical Fractions

Kids explore fractions, while writing a colorful melody, without even knowing how to read music! Fill glasses up with different fractions of water and add food coloring. Provide students with paper to write their songs. Have kids make a hypothesis about why the glasses of water project different sounds. Is it the color of the water: No! Kids will be wowed at how water level makes an impact on the sound that projects from each glass. The fraction of water in each glass produces a different pitch.

Rainbow War

Place cards in a pile face down. Kids pull a card off the pile and flip it over. The player with the larger fraction wins and takes one of the color paper rainbow strips. If a player has a gold coin, the gold beats the rainbow fraction, unless the card has a full rainbow (7/7). The player with the gold coin take the number of coins it says on the card. No one gets a rainbow strip. If a player has a shamrock, shamrock beats a rainbow fraction card, unless the card is a full rainbow. The player with the shamrock chooses any color rainbow strip. There can be two winners of the game. The goal is to collect all the colors of the rainbow (each rainbow strip). The other way to win is to collect the most gold coins. Players can't count their coins, until someone has collected all the colors of the rainbow. Free printables below, print more than one of each sheet for a longer game. Drag images to your desktop to print.

Taste the Rainbow

Skittles Exploration
1. Online collaboration project - skype and compare results with schools across the U.S. (Registration opens March 1)
2. Skittles Density Column - Cool Science at Home
3. Skittle Chromatography - Awesome Crazy Guyz
4. Skittle Color Separation - Parents: Homeschool Den
5. Fizzle a Skittle - Gigi Reviews
6. Skittles Riddle Book - Fun with a variety of math concepts
7. Skittle Arrays / Fractions - click here
8. Crack a skittle open like a clam shell?! - Parenting

Free Printables!
1. Skittles Graph, Tally, Sort - Golden Gang Kindergarten
2. Skittles Math Center - Erica Bohrer's First Grade
3. Skittles Place Value - Beacon Learning
4. Skittles Fractions - NWACC

Online Tool
Pie chart creator

Candy Art

Explore multiplication and fractions by creating a candy art array! Kids create an image using colored candy. They must use their problem solving skills because their candy must line up evenly to create an array. When they're finished with their candy picture, they write down the multiplication equation that matches their array. Then, they write down the fraction for each color they used. Visit Candy Art for more intricate designs to get kids inspired!

Note: For this activity, split kids up into teams. Then, they can collaborate and create larger designs.

Make a Rainbow

Andy Brain made a rainbow by using a coffee pot, flashlight, and a dark room! Click here to see how he did it! For more rainbow science click here! You can make a rainbow with a garden hose, compact disc, or a drinking glass. The easiest way to make a rainbow is with a prism, if you have one.

Crystallized Rainbow

Sweet and Simple Things made a pipe cleaner rainbow and crystallized it in borax solution! Click here to see how they did it!

You can crystallize any shape or color in borax solution! You just need pipe cleaners. Borax does the rest, creating polymer crystals! Click here to see original post.

Measure the Rainbow

Kids learn the color components of the rainbow, and practice their measuring skills! Visit Free Kids Crafts for the full tutorial!

Rainbow Sponge Painting

Paint a rainbow in one swipe of a sponge! Visit Kiboomu for the tutorial!

Density Towers

Explore solids and liquids with the classic density tower. After discovering the density of liquids, kids can test how dense certain solids are. Which solids sink? Which ones float? Click here for the explanation. If you want to make a smaller tower, you can experiment with the 7-layer density column here. You can adjust the colors of your 7-layer density column and make a rainbow tower! 

You can also integrate math with this activity and practice fractions!

For younger kids, you can concoct Science Bob's drinkable density juice tower! Yum! Visit his site for the full tutorial!