Posts on “ Math ”

You’ve been asking for it, so it’s with great pride that we present to you our newest topic page, Iroquois!  In this Social Studies movie,  Annie and Moby introduce the culture, customs, traditions, and history of the Iroquois people. You’ll learn about the Six Nations (the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscacora) and how these Native Americans lived long ago. See how their lives changed when the settlers began arriving in the 1600s. How do the Iroquois keep their traditions and culture alive? Also debuting this week: Probability! In this math movie, Annie and Moby find out how the concept of probability can be applied to everyday life. You’ll learn what it means for an event or outcome to be likely, unlikely, certain, and impossible. See how to calculate probability and show likelihood using numbers and fractions. Enjoy!

Number Jumble is a free online math game developed by Play Power Labs. Players encounter a multiplication table in which the numbers are mixed up and need to be put back into the right position. The game helps strengthen students’ conceptual understanding of multiplying either whole numbers or decimals, depending on which version of the game you select, and teaches students to look for patterns in a multiplication table. Our Common Core-aligned lesson plan provides ideas for using Number Jumble to help students in grades 2-5 meet the following standards: Accurately multiply whole numbers and/or decimals. Identify patterns within a multiplication table. Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them. Look for and make use of structure. Look for and express regularity in repeated reasoning. Check out the rest of our free math games on GameUp, and stay tuned for another new game announcement on Monday. Have a great weekend!

BrainPOP’s GameUp offers two online math games from Manga High to help students sharpen their geometry skills for free! Pyramid Panic is a geometry game set in Ancient Egypt. Players have been prematurely mummified and entombed within a pyramid, and must use geometry skills to build a path across the voids and escape. Our Pyramid Panic lesson plan explains how to use this game to help upper elementary and middle school students understand basic geometry concepts related to circles, polygons, and triangles, and apply those understandings to real-life situations. A Tangled Web features a spider named Itzi. Players must climb the clock to help Itzi rescue his family by solving cunning angle puzzles which reveal a path through each level’s maze of tangled webs. The lesson plan for A Tangled Web shares ideas for using the game to teach students in grades 3-8 about angles, parallel lines, polygons, triangles, circles, and other geometry concepts. There are over a dozen other free math games in BrainPOP’s GameUP. Let us know what you think in the comments!

This past summer, we announced the addition of Budget Hero to the math and social studies sections of GameUp. Developed by the Woodrow Wilson Center, American Public Media and 360KID, Budget Hero challenges players to balance the federal budget. Throughout the game, players make policy changes that affect the budget deficit/surplus, the size of government as a percentage of GDP, the national debt as a percentage of GDP, and the projected year in which the budget “busts.”  While experimenting with budget cuts and government investments, students can identify budget priorities that they find interesting such as green initiatives, health and wellness, energy efficiency, and more. The response to Budget Hero has been overwhelming. The game developers report in a recent press release that the game has been played 1.3 million times through August 2012, with 75 percent of players playing a complete game! Additionally, almost 20,000 comments have been submitted to the developers through the game, with the majority of commenters saying it changed the way they think about the federal budget. Now there’s a special election edition of Budget Hero available to illuminate the budget impact of policies championed by President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney as well as those related to the impending… Read the Rest»

BrainPOP is pleased to partner with Mangahigh in announcing the addition of the Flower Power game to BrainPOP’s GameUp! This fun, free online math game provides students in grades 3-8 with practice in comparing and ordering fractions and decimals. The object of this math game is to make as much money as possible by growing and harvesting valuable and exotic flowers. Students use fraction and decimal ordering skills to correctly order the blooms in the garden, and then harvest mature stems and sell them. Students must balance pollination and harvesting to achieve a high score, and demonstrate a mastery of fractions and horticulture. Each bloom (which is labeled with a fraction early in the game and fraction or decimal later on) grows on the flower stems. The numbers must be ordered by dragging large blooms to the top and small blooms to the bottom. Buds will flower into blooms if released, or if not positioned quickly enough. When a stem grows to its full height of seven blooms, it will stop growing, and the player has the opportunity to either harvest it, or wait and allow it to be pollinated by a bee. When a bee pollinates the flower, it… Read the Rest»

This spring, we told you about a national math challenge for middle schoolers run by The MIT Education Arcade and supported by BrainPOP. Between April 1st and June 15th, nearly 1,000 teachers and other adult mentors enrolled more than 30,000 students in the Labyrinth Challenge, centered on the educational game Lure of the Labyrinth. Over the course of the 10 weeks, students collectively spent half a trillion minutes (that’s more than 950 years!) collaborating on the solving of mathematical puzzles to save pets from the “Tasti-Pet Factory.” In addition to gaining problem-solving confidence and bragging rights, students earned chances to win some amazing prizes. Those who worked together with their teammates to reach certain levels in the game were entered into a drawing for a complimentary home subscription to BrainPOP, animation software from FableVision, and Lenovo ThinkPad Tablets. Teachers also had chances to win by completing pre- and post-Challenge surveys. In total, 20 teachers and nearly 100 students were awarded prizes for their participation. “Our partnerships with BrainPOP and Lenovo were critical to recruiting so many players to participate in the Labyrinth Challenge,” said Carole Urbano, Outreach Director for The MIT Education Arcade. “Offering prizes provided that extra incentive to… Read the Rest»

GameUp continues to grow and we’ve just added another new game!  Budget Hero, developed by the Woodrow Wilson Center, American Public Media and 360KID, is now available in the math section of GameUp and is an online game in which players try their best to balance the federal budget.  Throughout the game, players make policy changes that affect the budget deficit/surplus, the size of government as a percentage of GDP, the national debt as a percentage of GDP, and the projected year in which the budget “busts.”  While experimenting with budget cuts and government investments, students can identify budget priorities that they find interesting such as green initiatives, health and wellness, energy efficiency, and more. Perfect for middle school and highschool Math or Social Studies classes, our Budgets, Comparing Prices, and Money movies can help students understand the necessary concepts for successfully playing Budget Hero.  We’ve also created a lesson plan for teachers to use when integrating the use of the game into their curriculum.  Not only does our lesson plan include tips and tricks for playing the game, but we’ve included an additional resource students can use to guide them through gameplay.  So, do you think your students have… Read the Rest»

Ayiti is the latest addition to GameUp in conjunction with Global Kids! We’re really excited to share this unique game with you. Ayiti is a turn based, strategy game that challenges players to manage a family of five in rural Haiti, and keep them all healthy, educated and out of debt. At the start of the game, the player chooses a main goal for his/her family: achieve education, make money, stay healthy, or maintain happiness. During the course of the game, the player encounters unexpected events and must make many decisions that contribute to or detract from achieving the chosen goal. Ayiti corresponds with our movie topic pages on Budgets, Fighting Hunger, Money, and United Nations. It’s great for project-based learning because of the inter-disciplinary aspects. Use our Ayiti lesson plan to get ideas for elaborating on the science, social studies, math, and health topics covered in the game. After game play, there are lots of ways you can help students make a difference in the world. More details about each one are found on the Ayiti website (including the names and contact information for the individuals and organizations listed below). Write a letter to your Congressional or Senate Representatives to find out what they are doing… Read the Rest»

There’s a new math and science game available on GameUp! In Refraction, students in grades 4-8 have the opportunity to explore light refraction and apply knowledge of fractional concepts during online gameplay. Refraction is an online puzzle game in which the player must partition lasers in order to power spaceships containing various animals who have gotten stuck in space. These animal spaceships all require different fractions of the lasers, and the player is given several pieces that split and bend the lasers to reach the animals and satisfy these requirements. These mechanics can be used to teach many important fraction concepts, such as equal partitioning, addition, multiplication, mixed numbers, improper fractions, and common denominators. Check out the demonstration video below to see the game in action: You can use BrainPOP’s Light, Fractions, and Refraction and Diffraction movies to help your students build background knowledge prior to game play. A complete lesson plan for the game is also available on BrainPOP, or visit The Center for Game Science to see more related resources.

We’re spotlighting Sports & Fitness and Practical Math this month, so be sure to check out the collection of movies and other resources featured throughout all of May.   The arrival of warmer weather moves kids outdoors, so why not cover some topics they can take outside with them?  Our Soccer, Football, and Fitness movies can get kids up and moving while our Bicycle Safety movie is a perfect refresher for students before they hit the road.  With Baseball season in full swing, our Jackie Robinson movie is a valuable resource for teaching about the history of the sport.  Students often ask, “Why do we need to learn this?”  Answer their question with the featured topics and resources in the Practical Math spotlight.  From Comparing Prices to Estimating, we’ve included math concepts that students can apply to everyday life outside of the classroom.