The Ultimate Classroom Collection of 30+ Free Interactive Math Activities

Gone are the days when math instruction was confined to paper, pencil, and calculators. In this digital age, innovative tools are reshaping how students engage with math concepts, making learning more interactive and fun. This blog post invites you into the world of digital math education, with 30+ interactive examples showcasing how students of all ages, from elementary to higher education, can enhance their math skills with teacher-created activities made with BookWidgets. There is something for every learner and subject of math, whether it be basic Arithmetic, Geometry, or Algebra, or Trigonometry and Calculus. I even have a widget activity for all the Swifties out there! 🛫 💕🏈 Best of all, teachers and students do not need to download or subscribe to multiple educational math apps: BookWidgets has all the interactive tools in one place for creating hands-on, digital math exercises.

Let’s explore how BookWidgets can transform the math learning experience, opening up a world of possibilites beyond traditional methods! In this blog post, I will share math exercises, games, and puzzles for students of different ages.

• Math lessons for Elementary school
• Math lessons for Middle school
• Math lessons for High school
• Math lessons for Higher education

💡 Before we begin: If you are new to BookWidgets, BookWidgets is a content creation and evaluation tool for teachers. We provide the tools to support your students’ learning process from beginning to end with customizable templates (aka widgets) for creating activities and a reporting dashboard to track your students’ progress. I have a math activity for many of our 40 widget types. You can create your own or duplicate the ones I share by opening the activity and making a copy in your account. After duplicating, you can make changes to the activity, customizing it for your students. By clicking on this link you can access all the activities mentioned in this blog post.

💡 Keep in mind: If you integrate BookWidgets into a Learning Management System like Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Moodle, Canvas –& more!–, you can use “Live Widgets” to keep an eye on your students’ progress in real time to give feedback and support when needed.

Math Activities for Elementary School

Whether engaging students on the first day or 100th day of school, with our free interactive math activities, your classroom will become an animated learning environment brimming with fun math games for students. Each engaging math activity below is designed with the young learner in mind, setting a foundation for enjoying math through interactive play and hands-on exploration. Ready your students for an adventure in numbers that promises to be as rewarding as it is enjoyable!

1. Arithmetic + Subtraction Practice

The Arithmetic widget makes it easy for students to practice mathematical skills like addition and subtraction. Students solve the problems to reveal a reward word.

💡 Pro tip: There is no need for you, the teacher, to enter in the exact math problems for students to solve! In the widget editor, select the exercise group and BookWidgets will add the numbers for you! You can differentiate instruction quickly by duplicating the widget and choosing varying combinations of exercise groups.

2. Paint by Number Math Activity- Easy

Use a Whiteboard widget for your math lesson and add a background image, so students can solve math problems and color the image using the provided key and drawing tools in BookWidgets.

💡 Pro tip: After students submit their finished “paintings”, customize the feedback options to remove the point values and to download the student’s work as a PDF image. You can then share their art work in your class’ LMS or even print the submission and hang it on your classroom wall!

3. Which equals a 100?

This interactive Hotspot Image widget engages students in identifying math problems that have answers equal to 100. A click reveals immediate audio feedback, making it an enjoyable math exercise for the 100th day of school or as a regular practice activity.

💡 Pro tip: To create a customized image for your Hotspot, use tools like Google Slides, Adobe Express, or Canva. Then, open this widget on a smart board for a whole class activity or share this widget via a QR code to create an engaging math station activity that gets students up and moving about the room.

4. Clock Reading Bingo

Play a math Bingo game to help students practice reading an analog clock. BookWidgets will generate a “random” board for each student with the Bingo Card widget. For even more ideas for virtual math lesson plans and games (and other subjects!) with the Bingo Card widget, check out this post: 25 Fun Classroom Activities with an Exciting Bingo Game.

💡 Pro tip: To warm students up for this engaging math activity, start the class with a fun Pair Matching game like this where students can match audio to pictures. You duplicate it and add in other images, text, or audio as needed.

5. Time Calculator

Students can practice calculating the difference between two clocks using the Random Images widget. Students then click on the random icon in the corner to generate two new clock images. Share this time calculator lesson plan via QR codes to create a station activity that gets students up and moving about the room. Rather than typing in their answers, students can turn and talk to their partner or group, discussing the answer.

💡 Pro tip: If you wanted to have students document their discussion and answers, you can embed this widget within a Worksheet, Split Worksheet, Quiz, or Video Quiz. This blog post explains 10+ ways to share your BookWidgets activities with students.

6. Randomized Math Problems

Use the Randomness widget to generate random problems for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In the example below, students can practice their multiplication tables by opening this widget on a smart board for a quick, whole class math activity or accessing this widget via a QR code to create a station activity that gets students up and moving about the room.

💡 Pro tip: Duplicate this math widget and edit the wheels by either adding more symbols or numbers to increase the difficulty level or to provide variation, as needed. In this version, I’ve replaced numbers with dice for students to practice number recognition and basic arithmetic. Use the Pixabay integration to locate images for other number recognition practice.

7. Geometric Shape Recognition

With the Image Viewer widget, students can zoom in and out of an image, investigating what they see. In the activity below, students are tasked with identifying 5 geometrical shapes in the picture.

💡 Pro tip: Open this widget on a smart board for a whole class activity or share this widget via a QR code to create a station activity that gets students up and moving about the room. For quick differentiation and to create opprotunities for additional practice, duplicate the widget and use the Pixabay integration to locate a new image.

8. Fractions Video Quiz

Leverage students’ natural inclination for watching videos by either finding or creating explainer videos to introduce new math topics. This approach taps into their visual learning capabilities effectively. Students can learn about fractions in this Video Quiz activity. The video will stop at specific moments for students to answer questions that check their understanding. In BookWidgets, there are 36 different question-types from which teachers may choose to include in their video quiz!

💡 Pro tip: Creating your own math explainer videos or screen recordings is pretty easy. This blog post, How Your Video Lessons Can Be Even More Successful When Your’re on Screen, provides plenty of tips and tricks. In short, you can use a variety of tools like the built-in QuickTime Player (Mac), Screencastify, Loom, mmhmm, etc. When explaining your math topic, pause at key moments–this is where you will eventually insert your questions. Upload your explainer videos to your YouTube account, and set them as “unlisted” then import them into the Video Quiz widget and add your math questions. For additional Video Quiz ideas, check out this blog post: 10+ Powerful Ways to Use an Interactive Video Quiz in your Classroom.

9. Pizza Fractions

Students can practice spatially recognizing fractions with a colorful Pair Matching widget activity. Be warned: this widget may make your students hungry! 🍕😋

💡 Pro tip: In the General tab of the widget editor, be sure to select the option to show matched card pairs “using colors and symbols” so that students with perceputal impairments can recognize when they’ve made a match.

Math Activites for Middle School

As students transition from elementary school to high school, the following free and engaging math activities reinforce the concepts learned and prepare middle school students for advanced math instruction. Even though the difficulty level may be increasing, the focus is still on making math instruction interactive, hands-on, and fun for middleschoolers. Additionally (pun intended 😃), I’ve included examples of cross-curricular lessons that connect math instruction to art, history, and research writing.

10. Paint by Number Math Activity - More Difficult

On a Whiteboard widget with a background image, students can solve math problems and color in the image using the provided key and tools in BookWidgets. Increase the difficulty level of the problems to create a challenge for students.

💡 Pro tip: Use platforms like Google Slides, Adobe Express, or Canva to create your own custom math images by inserting textboxes of problems in the areas that you want students to color.

11. Two Factor Multiplication

Students can practice two factor multiplication problems with this Arithmetic widget activity. As students solve the problems, they earn a letter to reveal a reward word.

💡 Pro tip: If you want to increase the difficulty level, check the box to “Remove letter on wrong answer” in the General tab of the widget editor.

12. Geometric Origami

On this Whiteboard widget activity, students can practice spatial recognition and fine motor skills as they select, resize, and move shapes around the canvas to create a digital origami cat.

💡 Pro tip: If you want to increase the difficulty level and tap into students’ creativity, remove the background image on the whiteboard and have students use the stickers to create their own origami animal.

13. Hands-on Origami Video Quiz

For a fun, project-based math activity, check out this Origami Jumping Cat project made with a Video Quiz widget. Students document the creation process by snapping pictures of their paper at various stages and answer an audo-response question to reflect on the experience.

💡 Pro tip: You could turn this into a weekly, fun Friday math activity by swapping out the Origami Cat video for other origami creature videos.

14. Angles for Discussion

Using a Split Whiteboard widget, students can not only demonstrate their understanding, but can also use this engaging math activity to practice their speaking skills as they draw and explain the angles with a partner.

💡 Pro tip: Just as with the Whiteboard widget, you can save exemplary student submissions as PDFs and share them to your class’ LMS or print them for display in the classroom.

15. Famous Female Mathematicians

This Worksheet widget math activity challenges students to solve a rebus (picture puzzle) to reveal the name of a famous female mathematician. This math puzzle can serve as an introduction to a cross-curricular project where students research famous mathematicians. Highlighting the significant contributions of women in a field historically dominated by men challenges stereotypes about who can excel in math. Recognizing the contributions of famous female mathematicians inspires current and future generations of young women and girls, showing them role models who have excelled in mathematical sciences.

💡 Pro tip: Teachers can enhance questions by adding audio, offering auditory instructions and additional information. This approach eliminates lengthy lectures, allowing students to absorb content at their own pace through pause-and-play functionality. This can be integrated into a blended learning activity, where students transcribe the listened content into their notebooks. Check out this post for more information: How to use Voice recording in Your Classroom–The Complete Guide.

16. Arithmetic Crossword

In this Crossword widget, students are typing in numbers rather than words to solve arithmetic problems. You can also embed crosswords using the crossword question-type in a Worksheet, Split Worksheet, Quiz, or Video Quiz widget activity.

💡 Pro tip: Duplicate this widget numerous times and remove/add/change the problems to make it harder or easier for your students and so that you have a set of ready-to-use practice math activites that you can quickly share with students when you need to fill time during a class period.

17. Math Pun Flashcards

Of course, you can use the Flashcard widget to help students learn specific math terminology and formulas, but what if you also used the flashcards to curate some awesome math puns? These puns can bring a smile and maybe even a groan or two, but either way, you can count on them to add some fun to your instruction! 😃

💡 Pro tip: You can add text, images, and audio to flashcards, as well as hints to help students study. Check out this blog post with 20 ways to use digital flashcards in your classroom.

Math Activities for High School

Elevate your high school math classroom with a suite of activities that blend engagement, fun, and skill mastery. These virtual math games and simulations aim to enhance understanding and make the learning process more dynamic, as well as connect math instruction to the world beyond the classroom. By seeing how math operates in everyday life and various professions, students can appreciate its value and are more likely to develop a lasting interest in it. This approach also equips students with problem-solving skills that are essential for success in a wide range of fields, promoting critical thinking and analytical skills that are transferable to real-world situations. And, you can connect to students’ interests by creating widgets that feature pop culture icons like Taylor Swift!

18. Math Quiz

This Quiz widget activity showcases all available math question types. BookWidgets supports LaTex formatting and provides embedded tools like a scratchpad, calculator, and equation editor for math instruction.

💡 Pro tip: Duplicate the quiz to your account to explore question creation under the ‘Questions’ tab and review all settings under the ‘General’ tab. You can customize scoring and accessibility options as needed.

19. Pop Culture Math Problems

This Worksheet widget math activity merges the worlds of music and sports through math problems based on Taylor Swift’s journey to see her boyfriend Travis Kelce play in the 2024 Super Bowl, offering students a unique opportunity to apply arithmetic, ratios, and percentages to real-life scenarios involving popular cultural figures.

💡 Pro tip: You can easily convert Worksheet widgets into other widget types by importing questions from one widget into another. For example, if students get overwhelmed by a long, scrollable page of questions in a Worksheet widget, convert it into a Quiz widget which delivers one question at a time on the screen.

20. The Equation of Love

Students manipulate and experiment with parameters like ‘a’ and ‘b,’ providing an immediate visual representation of how changes impact the plot in this Active Plot widget activity. Want more digital Valentine’s day classroom activities for math? Check out this bonus blog post.

21. Plot and Connect the Dots

In this Split Worksheet widget math activity, students follow directions to practice plotting and connecting the dots to reveal an image.

💡 Pro tip: Don’t have a class set of scientific calculators? No worry! In the ‘General’ tab, enable the embedded calculator for students to use.

22. Mind Map: Geometry formulas

Using the Mind Map widget, students can curate and review geometry formulas. In this example, Geometry Formulas serve as the main branch. Area and Perimeter, Pythagorean Theorem, and Volume Formulas are the main categories. Each of those will have subcategories where the students can write the formulas.

💡 Pro tip: Students can create a powerful math study aid that organizes all the formulas in one location. By doing so, they can easily access the formulas whenever needed!

23. Derivatives Math Memory Game

Kick off class or a conversation with a partner with this Math Derivatives Memory Game using the Memory Game widget. Students locate the pairs and discuss the meaning of each with the whole class or a partner.

💡 Pro tip: The Memory Game widget can be used for any grade level in which you want to have students practice recalling concepts learned.

24. The history of π

Check out this Timeline widget math activity for a brief history of finding π.

25. Pi jokes

Seriously, math can be funny! Check out these pi jokes that can be shared with students via the Frame Sequence widget.

26. Flip a Coin (or 3!)

When teaching about probability in a statistics course, you can add some interactivity to your math lesson by letting students do their own probability experiments. To avoid coins flying around in class, you can easily do a coin flip experiment using the Randomness Widget: let students flip the coins a few times, make them count how many heads or tails they have, and eventually they will realize the fact that there’s a ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ chance of either.

💡 Pro tip: Of course, you don’t have to use coins: you can use the Randomness widget to randomize anything, from numbers and symbols to your own custom images. Here is one that feature calculating the roll of di.

27. Sine and Cosine Visualized

The Active Plot widget allows students to play with function visualizations. For example, if we’re teaching about trigonometry, we can create an Active Plot activity for the sine and cosine functions. Enter the functions you want your students to learn about and mark which parts of the function you want your students to interact with. By playing with the coefficient sliders, students get an understanding on how the coefficients affect amplitude and frequency.

💡 Pro tip: You can take things even further: you can let students enter their own functions, or use drawing tools to draw on the plot (e.g. to indicate tangents). When they’re done, they can submit their answer to you, and you can grade them from within your dashboard. Check out this activity for plotting the world population over time.

28. Math of Music

The Active Plot widget amplifies math instruction by having students see how the impact of changes in amplitude, damping, and frequency of sound waves when a musician plucks a string on an instrument like a guitar or violin. 🎸

Math Activities for Higher Education

The next set of widgets were created and shared by teachers, Brian White and Greg Carpenter, at the Delaware Area Career Center (DACC) in Delaware, Ohio. The DACC provides unique elective courses to high school students and adult learners seeking advanced training. Not only do they collaborate with their colleagues at the DACC and share widgets with one another, but they also have a public BookWidgets group for Algebra 1 and 2 that you can join! So whether you are teaching the following math subjects in an accelerated high school class or college course, the following engaging math activities showcase how BookWidgets can be used for advanced math instruction.

29. Introduction to Imaginary and Complex Numbers

Imaginary and complex numbers are fascinating mathematical concepts that expand our understanding of the number system, introducing numbers that can represent solutions to equations that real numbers alone cannot solve. This Worksheet widget activity created by Brian White introduces students to imaginary and complex numbers.

💡 Pro tip: Enhance the visual design of your widget activty by adding a background image. Here are 10 BookWidgets design tips to spice up your digital lessons.

30. Introduction to Linear Systems

This Worksheet widget activity, also created by Brian White, introduces students to linear systems and using a graphic calculator such as this one at Desmos.com.

31. Solve Quadratic Equations by Factoring

This third example, another Worksheet widget math activity, created by Brian White features an embedded video he made for students to watch before answering the questions.

💡 Pro tip: It is easy to add video to your widget activities whether it be in the instructions or within a question.

32. Testing Results

This Worksheet widget activity created by Greg Carpenter also features a screencast he created for his students and has questions that relate to pop culture and real-world scenarios. The “P Value Method for Significance Testing of a Proportion” is a way to check if the results from a study or experiment are significant, or if they might have just happened by chance.

33. Graphing Functions

This Worksheet widget activity also created by Greg Carpenter includes a Whiteboard question for students to practice graphing functions.

💡 Pro tip: Use the feedback and annotation tools in the reporting dashboard to add comments and annotations to your students’ whiteboard responses.

34. Matching Values

And here is one last activity from Brian White using the Pair Matching widget. Students need to match the inequality or absolute value expressions with their corresponding interval notation or number line representation.

💡 Pro tip: Turn this virtual math game into a whole class competition when you share this widget to students via a Learning Management System. Open the “Live Widgets” view of this activity to see a real-time leaderboard. You will quickly see who knows the material and who may need extra help– and with one click you can choose to reveal or hide student names to protect their identity when showing the leaderboard to the whole class.

Wrap up

As we wrap up our exploration of digital math education, it’s evident that the traditional reliance on paper, pencil, and calculators has evolved. Innovative math tools have recalculated the approach to learning, adding free interactive and engaging activities into the equation, making math instruction both dynamic and accessible. From widgets that animate problem-solving to educational math games with LaTex formatting, the possibilities are boundless for students across all educational levels, from elementary to higher education. These teacher-approved math tools and creative math activities are not just about learning; they’re about transforming the way we approach math, making it a fun and interactive experience. With every widget and exercise, BookWidgets opens up a world of interactive math learning, offering hands-on math activities and virtual math games that engage and educate, ensuring that every learner finds a pathway to deepen their math understanding and skills.

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