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7 Fun Geometry Hands On Activities For High School

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Fun geometry hands-on activities for high school can mean the difference in just getting by and really getting engaged in lessons. Also, look at my page How to Homeschool High School for more ideas.

Just because your child is in high school does not mean that they’ve set aside their love for Lego.

A fantastic way to incorporate Lego into lessons is to use them to create examples and identify angles.

7 Fun Geometry Hands On Activities For High School

We have done Lego math in the past. But you can even use it for high school manipulatives for learning geometry.

First let’s talk about what geometry is.

Geometry is the part of mathematics that we use for calculating the distance around a circle, the angles that make up a triangle, or the amount of room inside of a cube.

We use it daily in art, navigation, in construction, sports, and even simple household tasks like measuring a surface area for wallpaper.

So, you can see why it is a necessary skill for your teen to learn.

7 Fun Geometry Hands On Activities For High School

Next, look at some of these activities.

These activities are a wonderful way to create a break in the typical textbook, worksheet lesson of high school geometry and can help make complicated lessons more understandable.

  1. Look at this LEGO for geometry idea Pythagorean Theorem Lego Proof.
  2. This Geometry Roller Coaster Project is a large scale lesson in engineering and problem solving. Although it’s written for a classroom, it can be used for one or two students.
  3. Using Hands-On Inquiry in High School Geometry gives you ideas for creating some hands-on geometry lessons that include their observations and geometry tools.
  4. Play the Simplyfun Shape Whiz game for an enjoyable lesson to reinforce some basic geometry shape information.
  5. Bonus, this one post includes 5 Geometry Projects for Middle and High School that are fun while
  6. Grab your deck of uno cards and try Using Uno as an Intro to Teaching Proofs for an advanced geometry lesson.
  7. While Geometric Art For Kids is geared to younger kids I still really think it has value and appeal for the high school bunch as well.
7 Fun Geometry Hands On Activities For High School

Also, look at my post Ancient Greece Unit Study Play Stomachion Like Archimedes {Explore Geometry} to add a math element to your favorite unit study.

The resource Everything You Need to Ace Geometry in One Big Fat Notebook is a fantastic supplement to any curriculum.

In addition, it can be used for independent study and worked well to use with my LEGO activity I have for you today.

Teaching Geometry With LEGO Activities For High School

You will need:

  • LEGO
  • LEGO Baseplate
  • cardstock
  • Pen
7 Fun Geometry Hands On Activities For High School

Single row, long LEGO bricks work best for these activities.

And if you need a good basic set of LEGO because you don’t already have them lying around the house this is a fantastic option.

Two ways we discovered to practice basic geometry are through learning terms and identifying examples of them as well as identifying different angles.

The first way I have to practice geometry is a way to introduce or reinforce geometry terms.

Geometry Vocabulary

  • Point- Indicates a location.
  • Line-a straight path that extends infinitely in both directions.
  • Line segment –Part of a line with two endpoints.
  • Ray- Part of a line that starts at a point and extends infinitely in one direction.
  • Vertex  –The point of intersection of two or more line segments.
  • Triangle – A shape with 3 sides and 3 vertices.
  • Angle- is formed of two rays with the same endpoint, vertex.
  • Parallel lines- Two lines in the same plane that are at equal distance from each other and never meet.
  • Perpendicular lines– Lines that intersect at a 90 degrees angle.

Write each of these terms onto cardstock and cut them into small strips to create labels.

7 Fun Geometry Hands On Activities For High School

You can carry out the activity in one of two ways, either create examples of the terms using various LEGO pieces or lay down the terms onto the base plate and have your highschooler create an example by building it with LEGO bricks.

7 Fun Geometry Hands On Activities For High School

Get creative with using single row bricks to create the examples, use single studs for your points, and make arrows at the end of rays with smaller pieces.

7 Fun Geometry Hands On Activities For High School

In the same way, create labels for acute, right, and obtuse angles and make examples for your student to match or let them create an example of each using random LEGO pieces.

7 Fun Geometry Hands On Activities For High School

Because LEGOs are meant to snap together at right angles and not obtuse or acute you will need a little help. Place your long skinny bricks on single studs to lift them above the base plate

7 Fun Geometry Hands On Activities For High School

You will then be able to swing them around freely to create different angles.

7 Fun Geometry Hands On Activities For High School

7 Time-Telling Fun Hands-On Time Activities | Simple Watch Craft

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Hands-on time activities are the way to go when it comes to teaching your child how to read an analog clock.

Another thing I like to do is apply learning to real life situations as much as possible.

When a child is learning time, it helps to attach it to things like 12:00 for lunch, 8:00 for bedtime, etc.

7 Time-Telling Fun Hands-On Time Activities | Simple Watch Craft

It’s a simple but effective way to begin teaching your child about AM and PM.

Today to give your child an activity that they can use to learn this new skill, I have a cute little tutorial.

It’s a simple watch craft your child can design and then use to practice telling time on as they go about their day.

But that’s not all, there are 7 more fun hands-on time activities to try.

They will get your child moving, thinking, and eventually telling time all day long as they move from meals to playtime to bedtime.

Books For Kids About Telling Time and Clocks

Next, look at some of these hands-on resources for learning about telling time.

Also, include older learners by reading some of these living books about clock and time.

9 Time Telling Books for Kids Who Love to Read and Be Read To

Add some of these resources to your day for telling time.Your kids will love hands-on games and ideas.

Here are a few suggestions for games and other resources that will have them calling out the time on analog clocks all day long.

7 Time-Telling Fun Hands-On Time Activities

  1. Check out this rock sundial that will help your child learn small numbers and tell time using the sun to the hour.
  2. Find out how Teaching Time Made Fun works kids gross motor skills while teaching them time.
  3. These Telling Time Clock Playdough Mats are a fun way to incorporate sensory learning in a simple lesson.
  4. Using a basic learning clock you can play Rush Hour Game – How to TEACH Kids How to Tell Time! In a really entertaining way.
  5. Make use of the free resources in the yard like rocks by creating a Rock Clock and teach kids how to tell time with a creative twist.
  6. Use up those leftover eggs by creating the Telling Time Match Up game, what a great way to get familiar with matching numbers and clock faces.
  7. This Easy Telling Time  Craft For Kids shows examples of both analog and digital clocks for practice.
7 Time-Telling Fun Hands-On Time Activities | Simple Watch Craft

Finally, look how to make this simple watch craft.

Simple Watch Craft

For young children practice identifying the numbers on the watch face.

After they are very familiar with them you can move on to telling time to the hour, half hour, quarter hour, in five minute increments, and finally down to the minute.

You will need:

  • sturdy cardstock
  • A metal brad
  • Scissors
  • Hook and loop tape
  • Small round object to trace
  • Laminating machine/sheets
7 Time-Telling Fun Hands-On Time Activities | Simple Watch Craft

First, to make it easy to read and wear if you want to find a small round object larger than your child’s wrist, I used a little bowl to trace the watch face.

Measure their wrist and trace then cut a strip of paper about 1 ½ to 2” longer and  2” wide.

7 Time-Telling Fun Hands-On Time Activities | Simple Watch Craft

Measure the space from the center of the watch face to a little shorter than the edges and cut out two arrows, one shorter than the other.

Cut out each piece and let your child color it then write 1-12 on the watch face around the outside.

7 Time-Telling Fun Hands-On Time Activities | Simple Watch Craft

Place each piece in laminating sheets and seal to make them sturdier.

You don’t have to do this step but the practice watch will last a lot longer

7 Time-Telling Fun Hands-On Time Activities | Simple Watch Craft

Cut the laminated pieces leaving just a small border.

Poke a hole through the arrows and in the center of the watch face.

7 Time-Telling Fun Hands-On Time Activities | Simple Watch Craft

Push a brad through the arrows and watch, open into place.

7 Time-Telling Fun Hands-On Time Activities | Simple Watch Craft

Hot glue the watch face to the center of the “strap”

7 Time-Telling Fun Hands-On Time Activities | Simple Watch Craft

Now place each side of velcro on either ends of the strap so that it can be put together and pulled apart. (one half goes on the inside uncolored portion, the opposite piece should go on the colored side.)

7 Time-Telling Fun Hands-On Time Activities | Simple Watch Craft

15 Hands-On Nature Math Ideas to Make Learning Come to Life

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

I have 15 hands on nature math ideas for your younger kids. Also, you may love Hands-On Nature Study: Bird Color Bar Graphing Activity.

If you have a child who would rather be out filling their pockets with rocks than sitting still at the kitchen table learning to count, I have some fun hands-on nature math ideas for you.

But they are also great for kids who get bored on nature walks and need a little more structure.

Too, these ideas work if you feel like you haven’t accomplished any school this week, but you want to sit outside and enjoy the weather.

There are so many wonderful ways we can incorporate hands-on nature into many subjects, but have you ever considered math?

15 Hands-On Nature Math Ideas to Make Learning Come to Life

You can very easily enjoy nature study while learning math with your children.

Yep, there are lots of things you can do to work on math skills while in your own backyard, at the beach, walking around the neighborhood, in a field, at the park, or while hiking.

So, the next time you head out on a nature walk take a few of these ideas below along with you so that you are getting double the benefit out of your time.

Nature Items for Math Manipulatives

I not only have ideas for manipulatives but ideas for math tools to take with you on nature walks as well as some specific activity ideas to get you started.

You can use these items out in the field or bring them home for rainy days or just days that are too hot to get outside.

10 Nature Items to Use for Math Manipulatives

  1. Leaves
  2. Rocks
  3. Shells
  4. Acorns
  5. Seed pods
  6. Nuts
  7. Fruits
  8. Sticks
  9. Pinecones
  10. Feathers
15 Hands-On Nature Math Ideas to Make Learning Come to Life

Those items are great teaching for basic counting but there are a whole lot more ways to use nature items for math.

Real-world learning at its best.

Books to Include In Your Nature Study

Also, add some of these books to your day if you want to include a complete nature unit study.

6 Nature Study Books and Resources

Add one of these resources or books to your study about nature. They all give you a starting point or use one or two of them as a nature spine.

Additionally, look at these other fun ways to add hands on nature math to your day.

More Hands on Nature Math

Then, look at these ways to add nature math to your unit studies.

15 Hands-On Nature Math Ideas

1. COUNTING

A fresh method for counting that also helps build fine motor skills in little hands is to roll a die and have your child punch holes in leaves to match the number.

Take it to the next step and use it for addition, roll a second die, have them punch in that number then add them together.

15 Hands-On Nature Math Ideas to Make Learning Come to Life

2. SHAPES

Look for shapes occurring naturally in nature like squares, circles, triangles, etc.. point them out and your child will soon be finding them everywhere

3. NUMBER IDENTIFICATION

Teach your child to identify numbers by writing them on rocks, or leaves, or scratching them into the ground with a stick.

If you don’t want to leave permanent marks you can use chalk that is easily washed away. They can be used for ordering, skip counting, and addition/subtraction as well.

4. SORTING

Even the smallest toddlers can sort items by type such as leaves, rocks, and sticks.

15 Hands-On Nature Math Ideas to Make Learning Come to Life

5. STICK FRACTIONS

Cut 4 sticks of the same length. leave one as is, cut the next one in half, the next one thirds, and the last one into four equal pieces.

15 Hands-On Nature Math Ideas to Make Learning Come to Life

6. MEASURING

Take a ruler, yardstick, or measuring tape outdoors with you and teach your child how to measure the width, height, and circumference of trees, leaves, and more.

15 Hands-On Nature Math Ideas to Make Learning Come to Life

7. TALLY MARKS

Use similar-sized sticks to teach your child how to use tally marks for quick counting.

15 Hands-On Nature Math Ideas to Make Learning Come to Life

8. PATTERNS

Patterns are everywhere in nature, from leaf groupings of certain numbers to alternating colors on flowers.

15 Hands-On Nature Math Ideas to Make Learning Come to Life

9. SKIP COUNTING

You can use any type of nature manipulative for teaching skip counting but also look for patterns in nature to practice it, like this branch where the leaves are in groups of two.

15 Hands-On Nature Math Ideas to Make Learning Come to Life

10. ESTIMATING

Have your child grab a handful of pebbles, seashells, acorns, or whatever nature manipulative is handy, then have them guess how many are in their hand. Finally, count them out and see if they are close.

11. GEOMETRY

You can use sticks to create various geometric shapes for your child to identify. Or simply use a stick to draw them in the dirt or sand.

12. GRAPHING

Bring your items home and create a graph for items found-rocks, feathers, etc. or creatures seen on your walk.

13. COMPARING NUMBERS

Make two piles of objects then use leaves or small sticks to as an equality/inequality symbol.

15 Hands-On Nature Math Ideas to Make Learning Come to Life

14. SIMPLE EQUATIONS

Write out simple equations in the dirt or sand for your child to figure out, they can use the same stick to write the answer or nature manipulatives.

15 Hands-On Nature Math Ideas to Make Learning Come to Life

15. COUNTING FRAME (ABACUS)

Another simple idea that also works on fine motor skills is to carry a handful of small beads and thread them on skinny twigs the way you would an abacus for counting, or just give them a number and have them thread that many beads onto it.

15 Hands-On Nature Math Ideas to Make Learning Come to Life

You don’t need anything other than what you find outdoors for math but if you would like to bring along a couple of items to enhance the learning on your trip I recommend:

  • Ruler
  • Measuring tape
  • Small hand pruners (for cutting sticks).
  • 2 Dice
  • Hole punch
  • Permanent marker/chalk for writing on rocks, leaves, etc.
  • Bag for collecting items to bring home.
15 Hands-On Nature Math Ideas to Make Learning Come to Life

Creating Fun Red Eyed Tree Frog Manipulatives for Rain Forest Math

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Look how to make these fun red eyed tree frog manipulatives to use for rain forest math. And I have more ideas on my pages Rain Forest – Amazon, Rain Forest – Animals of the Amazon, and Rainforest Amazon Activities for Kids

Besides, creating these adorable red eyed tree frogs can be used for a multitude of fun rain forest math activities.

This is a wonderful way to incorporate math with a matching theme into your rainforest unit study.

Also, you sneak in some science, fine motor skills, art, problem-solving, and critical thinking skills.

Creating Fun Red Eyed Tree Frog Manipulatives for Rain Forest Math

For example, if you are having your child create the frog manipulatives take a moment to research Amazon lily pads.

Rather than the typical small lily pad with a notch in the side, the Victoria Amazonica is the largest member of the water lily family.

And is a massive round shape with upturned edges which can reach up to 8 feet in width.

This is why we are going to create a perfectly round shape for our lily pads to go along with our red-eyed tree frogs.

Before jumping to some fun rain forest math, look at a few fun facts about red eye tree frogs.

7 Facts about Red Eyed Tree Frogs

  • They are nocturnal.
  • A red-eyed tree frog will change its skin color to blend in with surroundings.
  • The big red eyes are a defense mechanism.
  • Red eyed tree frogs are in the Hylidae family of frogs known as tree frogs.
  • They have bright leaf green bodies.
  • They are small, about 1 inch and have sticky pads on their toes and fingers.
  • The red-eyed tree frog has three eyelids.

9 Rain Forest Math Concepts

Next, look at some rain forest math ideas to add to your study for the day or your rainforest unit study.

1. Addition/Subtraction Rain Forest Math

The obvious way to use them for addition is to count them but there are many ways to mix it up to keep it from becoming boring. 

  • Take the green circles you cut out and write numbers or use dots to represent the numbers then have your child place the matching number of button frogs on the lily pad.
Creating Fun Red Eyed Tree Frog Manipulatives for Rain Forest Math
  • Write simple addition or subtraction problems on the lily pads and have your child use the frogs as manipulatives to solve the problem.
Creating Fun Red Eyed Tree Frog Manipulatives for Rain Forest Math
  • Roll dice to get your two numbers and use them to create addition or subtraction problems.

2. One-to-One Correspondence Rain Forest Math

Creating Fun Red Eyed Tree Frog Manipulatives for Rain Forest Math

Your youngest learners will first need to learn this skill to help them grasp the value of objects. Have them point to each one as they count-1,2,3, etc.

3. Number Line

Grab a piece of blue paper (for your Amazon River of course), cut it out in a strip and write out your number line 1-10 or make it higher by taping strips end to end if you need to. This is yet another way to practice addition and subtraction.

  • Have them start their frog on a particular number and have them add/or subtract by another smaller number.
  • For older children, you could even make negative numbers on the left side of the number line. 

4. Sorting

Have your child sort from

  •  largest to smallest or small, medium, large, or even just small and large.
  • They can even simply sort by color shade if you have a mix of light and dark green buttons, sorting colors is an important early math skill.

5. Arrays

Use your button tree frogs for multiplication. One of the ways we can teach the concept of multiplication is through arrays. Arrays are simply an arrangement of evenly spaced columns and rows to demonstrate a number.

  • For example, show 2×3 by placing two rows and three columns of buttons to equal 6.

6. Fractions

Create fractions with the frogs.

  • Lay out 4 frogs and have your child show you what ½ or ¼ of the frogs are.
  • Write fractions on the lily pads and use the frogs to figure them out.

7. Skip Counting

Lay out as many frog manipulatives as you like and have your child skip by 2’s or any other number by pointing to the objects, this helps make it a concrete rather than an abstract process.

Creating Fun Red Eyed Tree Frog Manipulatives for Rain Forest Math

8. Number Chart

Use the frog manipulatives to move around on a 100’s chart to count, skip count, or find 1 less and 1 more.

9. Greater Than/Less Than

Draw an Inequality symbol on one of the lily pads and create problems by placing various amounts of frogs on either side.

Then, have your child turn the symbol to so that it is in the correct orientation.

Creating Fun Red Eyed Tree Frog Manipulatives for Rain Forest Math

Also, look at this list if you want to add a few rain forest books or resources to your study.

16 Rain Forest Animals For Kids Books & Resources

Add these rain forest animal books, games, and toys to round out your study of the animals of the rain forest.

More Rainforest Activities for Kids

Finally, look how to make cute red-eyed tree frogs to use to teach rain forest math.

Creating Fun Red Eyed Tree Frog Manipulatives for Rain Forest Math

Rain Forest Math Red Eyed Tree Frog Manipulatives

You will need:

  • Green buttons in various sizes
  • Red cardstock/construction paper
  • Hole punch
  • Craft glue

Additional items for activities:

  • Dice
  • Blue construction paper
  • Pipe cleaners
  • Gallon zippered bag

Gather as many green buttons as you think you will need. For younger children start with 10 for simple math problems. Once you get going the process is quick and you can have dozens made in no time.

Hole punch red paper two times for each button you have.

Creating Fun Red Eyed Tree Frog Manipulatives for Rain Forest Math

Add a small slit down the center of each dot with a pen. You may find it easier to do this step after they are glued in place but either way is fine.

Creating Fun Red Eyed Tree Frog Manipulatives for Rain Forest Math

Add two dots of glue and attach the eyes.

Creating Fun Red Eyed Tree Frog Manipulatives for Rain Forest Math

Set aside to dry.

While the glue is drying on the eyes, trace a circle object about 3”-4” wide onto green construction paper to make lily pads. It’s up to you how many you cut but I recommend starting with 10. There are so many ways you can use these.

Creating Fun Red Eyed Tree Frog Manipulatives for Rain Forest Math

Now, once your frogs are dry you can use them for math for multiple ages from toddlers up to kids working on multiplication and fractions.

You could also grab these cute and colorful Amazon frogs to use as manipulatives if you wanted to skip making them and still use the additional items we create with them.

 Pop all your supplies in a gallon ziploc bag to keep them together and then you also have a math pack that you can take on the go and practice with anywhere.

Waiting at the doctor’s office, or at a restaurant, or take them on a trip to the park for homeschool on a blanket.

Creating Fun Red Eyed Tree Frog Manipulatives for Rain Forest Math