Treasure Hunt

Everyone's house has hidden treasures. There is a lot of math you and your child can do with them.

What you'll need

Buttons

Screws

Washers

Bottle caps

Old keys

Seashells

Rocks

Or anything else you can count

What to do


1. Find a container to hold the treasures.

2. Sort and classify the treasures. For example, do you have all the same sized screws or keys? How are they alike? How are they different?

3. Use these treasures to tell addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division stories. For example, if we share 17 buttons among three friends, how many will we each get? Will there be some left over? Or, if we have 3 shirts that need 6 buttons each, do we have enough buttons?

4. Organize the treasures by one characteristic and lay them end-to-end. Compare and contrast the different amounts of that type of treasure. For example, there are 3 short screws, 7 long screws, and 11 medium screws. There are 4 more medium screws than long ones. This may also provide an opportunity to talk about fractions: 7/21 or 1/3 of the screws is long.

Finding a container to hold the treasures gives your child practice in spatial problem solving. The treasures may help you to explain the concepts of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division because they can be moved around and grouped together so your child can count the items.