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Math Activities for Middle School

Charlie S
Mathematics is a subject that has a lot of importance in shaping the career of students and at the same time, it is a dreaded subject in the student community. However, conducting some math activities can help to build a strong foundation, which can make the further path easy.
Mathematics needs a lot of practice and unfortunately, many students fail to understand this fact. If you wish to pursue competitive and highly job-oriented courses like Engineering, Astronomy, and Sciences, you need to have a good knowledge of the mathematical formulas and operations.
Till you practice more, you will not succeed in answering the questions. That is why, learning mathematics lessons from good teachers and practicing what you have learned is very important.
Unless you get your basics right, you will not understand the advanced topics. Here are some maths activities, that can be conducted in schools which can help students have their basics perfect.

Basic Operations

In the middle school, students are well versed with using the basic mathematical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to solve equations, and simple to complex word problems.
Word problem solving has situations, which involve buying or selling transactions, that need to be simplified using general knowledge and right use of concepts like the BODMAS rule and metric system.
The BODMAS rule simplifies the problems, while deciding which mathematical operation is to be carried out first.
Students learn the basic laws of algebra and geometry, and also learn how to utilize them to analyze and interpret geometrical figures like triangles, rectangles, circles, squares, and hexagons.
Studying the properties of these geometrical figures, gives them a deep insight in the world of geometry. The concepts in geometry like lines, planes, inclined planes, parallelism, perpendicularism are widely used to solve complicated problems in many branches of Physics. Hence, these things should be included as part of the activity.
Such activities also involve training the students in learning tables and memorizing the formulas, by teaching them simple and quick techniques of memorizing correctly.
Through the activities, they can also learn formulas and concepts involved in banking like calculating simple and compound interest, profit or loss, or preparing the balance sheet containing the assets and the liabilities.

Games and Puzzles

Games are great means to teach the simple as well as slightly difficult rules and concepts. They are interactive and fun-filled activities, which clear all the doubts easily.
Solving puzzles like Sudoku and riddles, which involve calculations and a good arithmetic sense, develops the ability to think and analyze things rationally and in a systematic way.
The puzzle in which we have to find the missing number in a square of nine cells can also be included. Such games should be conducted in the schools apart from regular coursework.
They help students strengthen their skills and also keep them interested in the regular coursework. Activities like quizzes in which students have to make a group of two participants and questions related to theorems, laws, and formulas are randomly asked, help to speed up the strategic thinking process, and increase the depth of their knowledge.