Math Games with Paper Cootie Catchers

Paper Math Games: Turn the classic cootie catcher fortune teller game into a math game to make learning fun!⁠ ⁠ To make a Cootie Catcher:⁠ Start with a square piece of paper and fold the corners into the center. Flip it over and fold the corners into the center again. You then fold it like a hot dog – with the thumb flaps on the outside. Your kids stick their fingers into the flaps and move them to reveal the inside. Your kids can lift the inside flaps to see another message. We used math as our “messages” inside the classic fortune teller.⁠ ⁠ Times Table Game⁠ For our multiplication cootie catcher, we wrote each “family” of math problems on the outer flaps. The tables we are working on with our second grader are 2, 3, 4 & 5s – so I wrote those numbers on the outside. Inside the flaps we have the numbers written out by skip counting. So as your kids move the paper game, they choose between the different “groups” of skip-count numbers. When they lift the flap, there are four multiplication problems for them to solve.⁠ ⁠ Fractions Game⁠ For the fractions game, draw a circle on each of the four main sections. Break the circle apart into “fractions. We did the following fractions on our catcher: 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, & 1/5. The next level of flaps the kids had to figure out which “flap” matched the circle. Even though my kids are learning just the fractions, I wrote the decimal number beside “the answer” to try to help them begin matching the two numbers together.⁠ ⁠ When the kids pull up the flap, they see another “problem”. They had to color in the fraction amount on the bar using their finger.