Family Fun for Father’s Day
This Father’s Day, weave math into your family fun with quick and easy,skill-building activities from Cyberchase, the animated hit series that airs daily on PBS KIDS GO!.
Here are Father’s Day ideas for the whole family:
Make Banana Pancakes! (Math skills: Measurement, Fractions)
In Father’s Day, Creech’s dad Max gets the Cyber Dad of the Year award, in part because of his fabulous banana pancakes. Does your Dad of the Year like pancakes? Together, you and your child can prepare Max’s recipe for that special Father’s Day breakfast. Need more pancakes? Work with your child to double, or even triple the recipe!
Max’s Banana Pancakes
(Makes 8-10 pancakes)
1 egg
1/2 C. sour cream
2/3 C. whole wheat flour
2 TBL sugar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp Salt
1/3 C. orange juice
1 C. mashed banana
In a medium-size bowl, mix together the egg and sour cream. Set aside. Sift together the flour, sugar, soda and salt. Stir flour mix into egg mix with the orange juice until moistened. Stir in the mashed banana.
Heat griddle with 2 TBL oil until oil is hot. Ladle mix onto griddle to make pancakes. Cook on one side until bubbly, then flip to cook other side.
Serve with butter and your favorite syrup, or eat as is!
Play Frisbee Golf (Math skills: Measurement, Using Numbers)
Here’s a fun way for the whole family to play golf on Father’s Day – Frisbee Golf! Dust off your favorite Frisbee, grab some paper and pens to keep score, and work together to set a “course” of landing targets for the Frisbee (a table, a picnic blanket, a hula hoop, etc.). Invite your child to help you measure the distance between the targets so they are at least 10 feet apart. Choose spots so the targets are not all in a straight line. The object of the game is to toss the Frisbee from one end of the course to the other using the least number of tosses, hitting each target as you go.
To play, take turns tossing the Frisbee toward a target – where it lands becomes the spot from which you take your next shot until you hit your target. Keep track of your score from target to target. (If you take three throws to hit a target, your score is three.) When all players have completed the course, lowest score wins – just like in golf!
Eating Out? (Math skills: Mental Math, Estimation)
Eating out for Father’s Day? Estimation is a powerful tool in mathematics. Before calculating a sum or a product, for example, using number sense to estimate the answer can help you know if your final calculation is reasonable. Here’s one way to give your child some quick and easy practice using estimation. At the restaurant, work together to estimate the total bill. To do this, decide on a way to make the prices of the menu items easy to work with (round up to the nearest dollar, for example). Then, use mental math to estimate the total.
Fight Boredom with the Dr. Marbles Gotcha Game! (Math skills: Logic, Problem Solving)
No one likes to be kept waiting at a restaurant, especially when you’re hungry. But you can make the time pass quickly when you play this fun math game. To set up, you need 15 sugar packets, 1 of them a different color. Arrange 14 of the packets in a circle. Put the 15th different-color packet in the center. The object of the game is to force your opponent to take the packet in the center Take turns removing one, two, or three sugar packets from the circle. The winner is the player who does not get stuck with the center packet. Play the game a few times. Can you think of a winning strategy?
Hint: To make a hard problem easier, try something simpler. The solution to the simpler problem can help you think about the more difficult one. Try playing with just five packets (one of which is a different color). Is it easier to think about a winning strategy?
And, in appreciation of “dear old Dad,” the whole family can enjoy award-winning film and stage actor Matthew Broderick in the all-new “Father’s Day” episode of Cyberchase premiering June 19 on PBS KIDS GO! (check local listings for times). Matthew voices the character of Max who, along with the help of the CyberSquad, tries to stop Hacker from setting out to ruin Father’s Day.
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