20 Unique Percentages Activities

Percentages can be tricky to teach as many students find this concept difficult to comprehend. Finding the right activities to engage your students and get them excited to learn about, and use, percentages is essential! No teacher wants to see their students zoning out as they teach this important skill. This is why we’ve collected 20 of the most engaging percentage activities that are sure to hold your students’ attention. Read on to find out more!

1. Teach on the Beach Math Lesson

Teach on the Beach delivers this math lesson out on an LA beach to a boy who is a complete beginner at percentages. He poses a percentage question and then guides the boy to complete it before letting him have a go himself. This is a super video to hook your students at the start of your lesson.

Learn More: yaymath

2. Black Friday Percentages

This consumer math activity, with free printable worksheets, uses the real-life example of the Black Friday Sales to pose simple percentage calculations to students. They will work to calculate the sale price; starting from the actual price.

Learn More: Advancement Courses

3. Percentages of Me

Students will love creating these cool pie charts about themselves. They will first create data sets which they can then turn into percentages to use for their pie charts. It’s great to revisit this activity over time and observe changes in the charts.

Learn More: Cindy deRosier

4. Plan a Park Online Game

This fun online game is a great way for students to see visual representations of percentages. Students will lay out their park however they wish; as long as the percentages are correct. This is a great holding activity for fast-finishing students.

Learn More: Kids Math Games Online

5. Fractions, Decimals, and Percentages Bingo Game

Converting percentages to fractions is essential, but a difficult skill! This bingo game is a fun way to practice this skill. Having multiple answer choices will support struggling students and take the pressure off whilst still helping them to learn.

Learn More: Math Teachers Resources

6. Skittles Percentage Charting

This creative idea uses skittles as a visual representation of percentages. Students get a handful of skittles and will need to calculate the percentages of each color in their total amount.

Learn More: Teaching With a Mountain View

7. Percentage Posters Art Project

This bright coloring activity is another super activity that will help your students recognize visual representations of different percentage amounts and how they correspond to the decimal and percentage conversions. The fraction boxes next to your 100 square will help to reinforce the concept that percentages and fractions can be equivalent.

Learn More: Math Art Projects

8. Percentage Animation Video

This math animation video gives clear examples of how students can convert between percentages, fractions, and decimal numbers. The video shows the mathematic process and calculations involved, taking your students through each step.

Learn More: EarthPen

9. Percentage Boxing Online Game

Games and other interactive activities are fantastic ways to let your students practice what they have learned. This game asks students to complete simple percentage calculations and even gives multiple-choice answer boxes to support them.

Learn More: Math Nook

10. Fractions, Decimal, and Percentage Matching Game

This activity is a fantastic game for students to match up common percentages, with their corresponding simple fractions and decimal numbers. It is a super simple resource to create! The only thing you will need is some paint-color swatch cards.

Learn More: @teachingwithpenguins

11. How to Teach Percentages So They Stick Activity

This activity with free printable task cards is super for practicing calculating percentages of whole amounts. The bar model lets students visually see the concept of splitting the amount into the required percentage.

Learn More: Make Sense of Math

12. If The World Were a Village Activity

‘If The World Were a Village’ is a fantastic idea and a great way to turn your percentage teaching into a longer-lasting, multi-curricular project. Students can use the data set from NRICH and then complete classroom activities such as converting data into percentages and using this to create graphs and charts.

Learn More: NRICH and Home School Share

13. What is a Percentage of Animated Video

This video offers great visual representations of fractions of whole amounts for students. It then demonstrates to students the math behind working out a percentage of whole amount calculations. You could use this video as an engaging hook for your next percentages lesson.

Learn More: Smile and Learn

14. Perfect Percent Patchwork Art Activity

This eye-catching coloring activity gives students the chance to convert percentages to fractions and see the visual representations of what fractions look like in their pictures. Students can have complete free reign on this task or you could set exactly what percentage of each color you would like them to use.

Learn More: To The Square Inch

15. Shade It Percentage Online Game

Interactive activities like this super game are a superb way to engage your students with percentages. Students must shade the correct percentage of each shape made up of 100 squares. This game is a great starter activity for your lesson to demonstrate percentages of 100.

Learn More: Math Nook

16. Fun Percentages Song

This funny song is a great hook for your next percentage lesson. It recites different percentages that students may come across in a real-life setting and discusses if they are a good thing or a bad thing!

Learn More: Mr. Colin Dodds

17. Percentage Scavenger Hunt

Do you want to give a math scavenger hunt activity a try? In this post is a step by step guide to math scavenger hunts and a free printable pdf scavenger hunts that covers percents. Students love how hand-on scavenger hunts are! These fun activities get students out of their seats and moving around the classroom. You dan download the free percent scavenger hunt math activity from the link to my dropbox (towards the bottom of the post).

This free scavenger hunt activity focuses on financial literacy. Students are challenged to practice their calculations of percentages. Starting with the actual price, students must work out the sale price of the item after a percentage discount. This activity is a fantastic one to use outdoors during your outdoor learning time.

Learn More: Scaffolded Math

18. Fraction, Decimal, and Percentage Fold It Up Activity

Try this fun, free, fold it up to help your math students with their fraction, decimal, percent conversions. Great for their interactive notebooks!

This activity is an interesting and innovative way to get your students to record their learning on decimal and percentage conversions. Under each flap, they will write how to perform each conversion. This can then be used as a handy tool to help them in future work.

Learn More: Cognitive Cardio Math

19. Percentage Dominoes

This domino activity gives children practice in identifying corresponding common percentages and simple fractions. They will match decimals to corresponding percentages; creating some bright displays with their work.

Learn More: Miss Ward’s First Class

20. Percentage Activity Pack

This super, free activity pack has lots of great activities focusing on many different aspects of percentage teaching, including decimals to percentages conversions and applications of percentages in a real-world context.

Learn More: Teaching Ideas