Ratio and proportion can be quite difficult math concepts to comprehend; therefore, it is of particular importance that students are engaged in interesting learning activities for these complicated concepts.
Middle school students need to build on important basic mathematical structures to develop competence in the complex concepts of ratio and proportion. Scroll down and enjoy this top 20 list of fun ratio and proportion activities for your middle school classroom!
1. It’s Goldfish!
Break out the food and get middle schoolers engaged through snacking! Students can use goldfish and other easy-to-snack foods to be able to develop a realistic, hands-on understanding. Check the lesson “something is fishy” to learn more about how to use this yummy snack to get your middle schoolers excited about math!
Learn More: Cognitive Cardio Math
2. Shifting Stations
Shift the worksheets out and the task card stations in! Get students moving about the room while they practice instead of just sitting at their desks by preparing task cards with ratio and proportions activities and questions!
Learn More: My Math Resources
3. Paper Planes
All kids love to make paper planes, so instead of banning those things from your classroom, embrace them! Let students make the paper planes, then use ratio and proportion to calculate and compare data! There are many ways this can be adapted to teach whatever level of concepts your students are learning (so it’s great for differentiation and building core skills) in relation to ratios and proportions!
Learn More: Tiarra’s Teaching Techniques
4. Rev up the Worksheets
Make boring worksheets a little more entertaining by adding a little extra like a puzzle to solve, matching actions, secret messages, etc. This is an easy way to make existing worksheets a little more of a fun ratio and proportion activity. This is also a good activity for subs as it is easy for them to give students to practice and strengthen concepts they have already learned.
Learn More: My Math Resources
5. Make it Realistic
You can use real-life scenarios that are relatable to student interests, so students can better see how ratio and proportion help them solve realistic, applicable problems! Link in technology for an added connection like this great lesson activity from PBS Kids.
Learn More: PBS Learning Media
6. Sweet Treat Holidays
Break out the candy with fun holiday-themed practice like this Halloween M&M ratio activity. You can adapt this to include other cultural holidays, obscure celebration days, etc. to make it applicable to any time of year as well as the added bonus of creating inclusive classroom culture and engaging all students.
Learn More: Kelly McCown
7. Manipulatives
A small change to make worksheets more interactive is the addition of math manipulatives. If you do not want to jack up the students on sweets every time you get interactive, then replace those candies with small fidgets or pre-made math manipulatives.
Activity sheets with the manipulatives are much more lively than a boring activity of asking and answering questions.
Learn More: Middle School Math Rules
8. Create Competition
Everyone likes to win! Students love competition, so bring that spirit to math by creating races. Make sure to make winning with correct answers the most lucrative, but also make the act of finishing lucrative, so you do not create a system that demotivates!
Learn More: Math Snippets
9. Show Off
Even older students like to show off and be proud of their work, so creating unique ways to display student work can have tons of added impact on classroom culture and positive effects on student learning.
Have students create posters, pennants, and other activities that solve ratio and proportion problems. These additional activities can be used in a variety of ways, like an art activity, a morning activity per day, or exit tickets!
Most importantly, this activity in class will create a classroom that builds a growth mindset by displaying student work and allowing students to create their own anchor charts.
Learn More: Scaffolded Math
10. Truth or Dare
Embrace the daring side of students by creating a truth-or-dare game. There are a lot of ways to make this concept work like making the “dare” being solving challenging questions to get the correct answer and “truth” being the recall of related concepts like vocabulary or solving more basic math building blocks related to ratios and proportions.
This will allow students to differentiate depending on their comfort with the subject, thus they can build skills up from where they are.
Learn More: Cognitive Cardio Math
11. Engage Other Subjects
Let students use maps and geographical data to see the connection between math and the world around them, thus easily engaging social studies and social sciences. You can see some scale ratio examples in this video to spur your creativity about applying this idea to your math classroom activities.
Learn More: YouTube
12. Have an Amazing Race
This Amazing Race scavenger hunt activity is a delightful way to facilitate collaborative learning in your classroom. Add a twist to this iconic game by incorporating various ratio and proportion problems that your kiddos will have to solve before you provide them with the clues they’ll need to race to the finish line.
Learn More: YouTube
13. Engage in Examples Online
Give students a technology-based online opportunity to practice by doing standards-based examples. This is a great way to help students apply the concepts and ensure they are meeting the various standards on ratios and proportions.
Learn More: Illustrative Mathematics
14. Tic Tac Toe
Break out the fun method of understanding proportions with the tic tac toe method by James Sullivan! Students will enjoy learning proportion concepts with this interesting method!
Learn More: YouTube
15. Online Games
Let students practice ratio and proportion concepts with fun online games. Students can explore the Dirt Bike Proportions Game and others are found on Hoodamath!
Ratio Rumble and Bad Date are just a couple of the fun math games for ratios that are found here on Math Snacks!
Students will have a blast getting to play and learn with these review games!
Learn More: Hoodamath and Math Snacks
16. Throw a Party
You can create a party around a certain cultural holiday or accomplishment. You can even find some fun obscure celebrations to create a party around. Just like with the themed activities from number six, this type of activity for ratio and proportions can build classroom culture as well as math skills. Students will use the party planning process to practice ratios and proportions such as portions per person.
Learn More: YouTube
17. Make Music
Let students explain their understanding through music. Students can work in groups to make ratios and proportions parody songs. This collaborative approach engages interest and self-expression! Check out inspiration by listening to this ratios parody using the Moana song How Far I’ll Go on the Songs for School YouTube channel.
Learn More: YouTube
18. Get Animated
Engage technology further in the classroom by letting students express their understanding through creating an animation. Students could work in groups and use some simple online programs like Powtoon, Doodly, or Pixteller to create short animations that solve a realistic example question using ratio and proportion!
Students will be thrilled at this creative way to express proportional relationships and ratio relationships.
Learn More: YouTube
19. 4-in-a-Row Ratio
Let your young minds practice in pairs using this wonderful game that will allow them to link visuals with ratio concepts. To play this game, you’ll encourage them to place counters on shape mats according to a displayed ratio. It’s a great activity if you’re looking to reinforce the concept of ratios, but it also takes a bit of strategy and quick thinking because to win this game your students will need to place four of their counters in a row.
Learn More: YouTube
20. Bullseye
Continuing with another fun idea from the TeacherACER YouTube channel, students can also have a bullseye race with magnetic bullseyes and magnetic darts. Students will answer ratio and proportion questions after hitting a target racing through the targets and questions!
What a great way to develop essential understandings without worksheets! Check out how to do it at the minute forty-five mark of the video.
Learn More: YouTube
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