In the springtime, some middle school students enjoy outdoor sports much more than they enjoy their math classes. Why not use two of these popular sports to our advantage in the classroom? The following problems with baseball and track themes challenge students to exercise some of the skills they learn in the middle school curriculum. […]

Here are online resources with virtual manipulatives that can help make area and volume real for students. Be sure to check out the sites these resources are from — the sites contain many other interesting and useful mathematics learning resources.
Area Explorer
With this simulation, the student finds the areas for irregular shapes on a grid. […]

Measurement is one of the core NCTM Principals and Standards for School Mathematics content standards, and rate is central to its practical application. While most middle school students know the distance-rate-time formula, they may still benefit from a closer study of the relationship.
Understanding Distance, Speed, and Time Relationships
Students see two runners move along a track. […]

A tangram is a set of seven pieces that all fit together to form a square. The fun — and the spatial orientation challenge — is to rearrange the five right triangles, the square, and the parallelogram to form a variety of shapes. An optional challenge is to find the area of each piece and […]