Katherine Johnson Color-By-Number Math Activity (free)

Mathematician Katherine Johnson was a trailblazing NASA scientist back in the 1950s and 60s. Her work was so important that after NASA started using computers in the late 1950s, astronaut John Glenn refused to fly on his 1962 orbit around the Earth until Johnson checked the computer's calculations by hand. She was invaluable to NASA and to the US space program for 33 years.

To give students a way to learn learn more about Katherine Johnson's life, I put together a 2-step equations color-by-number activity. The activity is editable if you would like to change any of the equations or facts for your students. You can access the activity for free here.

"We needed to be assertive as women in that days – assertive and aggressive – and the degree to which we had to be that way depended on where you were. I had to be. In the early days of NASA women were not allowed to put their names on the reports – no woman in my division had had her name on a report. I was working with Ted Skopinski and he wanted to leave and go to Houston, but Henry Pearson, our supervisor – he was not a fan of women – kept pushing him to finish the report we were working on. Finally, Ted told him, "Katherine should finish the report, she's done most of the work anyway." So Ted left Pearson with no choice; I finished the report and my name went on it, and that was the first time a woman in our division had her name on something." 

- Katherine Johnson, Black Women Scientists in the United States, Indiana University Press, 1999

Digital Math Escape Room Holiday Activity Bundle

This bundle of holiday digital math escape rooms will engage your students around the holidays while being a breeze to assign. 

Valentine's Day digital

Each math escape room inside comes as a self-checking Google Form, and as a printable black & white PDF. 

Valentine's Day printable

Each escape room has 20 questions broken into 5 puzzles. Students solve each problem, then type the correct 4-letter code to move to the next puzzle. 

There are 3,024 possible 4-letter codes for each puzzle, so the chance of guessing correctly is pretty low!

Football Game Day escape room

There are 2 types of escape rooms in this bundle: 

In the logic picture puzzle escape rooms, students solve for the values of holiday-themed pictures in equations. 

Christmas cookies escape room

These come with a student graphic organizer to help students keep track of the values of the different pictures. 

Halloween escape room

There are also 2 escape rooms especially for Pi Day where students solve for variables in the circle and volume formulas. 

Pi Day escape room - middle school

One Pi Day escape room is geared towards middle school students, while the other can be completed by students in 8th grade and up. 

Pi Day escape room - 8th and up

Each escape room includes a link to its digital version in Google Forms, a printable black & white version, a printable student answer sheet and an answer key. The picture puzzle logic escape rooms also include a printable graphic organizer to help students keep track of each pictures' value.

To add the digital escape rooms to your Google Drive: please open its PDF and click the button on page 3. Each escape room also comes with a printable, black & white PDF version for days you'd rather work on paper.

Inside this bundle are digital math escape rooms for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, winter, Valentine's Day, and Pi Day. And the bundle is still growing! All future additions are free to download. What other holidays would you like to see?

Digital Math Escape Room Holiday Activity Bundle

Browse all non-holiday math escape rooms

Fun activities for teaching systems of equations

Which is your favorite method for solving systems of equations-- graphing, substitution or elimination? Solving by elimination always feels a bit like magic to me, and I love how solving with substitution brings in the transitive property. There's something satisfying about solving a system with graphing and finding the exact coordinate both lines pass through. 

In this post are a bunch of activities for teaching solving equations by graphing, substitution and elimination.  

First I want to share a few systems of equations emoji posters. The posters are here in my Google Drive. Two of the posters use emoji smiley faces to show solving systems of equations with substitution, and the third poster shows solving systems with elimination.

Drake loves systems of equations, but only picture systems. If you like these types of picture puzzles and are on Pinterest, I've been collecting them on this Pinterest board.

I've made a few logic picture puzzle digital math escape rooms, including this one above with a winter theme. The activity comes in digital and print forms, the digital being a self-checking Google Form. Students figure out the values of each winter picture then type their 4-letter code to move to the next puzzle.

This systems of equations math pennant activity has students solving systems by graphing. Their completed pennants then become student-made classroom décor. There's another set of pennants for solving systems using elimination and substitution.

We only ever focused on solving systems of linear equations, but I know some curriculums have students solving systems where one of the lines is a quadratic. This systems scavenger hunt has students walking around the room solving systems of linear and quadratic equations while working in some movement. Students can start on any of the scavenger hunt cards. They solve, find their answer at the top of another card in the room, then solve that system and continue until they have visited all cards.

I'm not a huge fan of board games except if they are collaborative games where players team up against the board. It's not that I hate losing, I actually don't like winning. I always feel bad for beating the other person. Weird. This systems of equations game has students working together to solve systems of equations and beat the math monster to the treasure.

The winter holidays just passed as I'm writing this post, though it's still absolutely freezing outside. My daughter has had indoor recess all week. These winter holiday systems ornaments ask students to solve systems of equations by graphing, substitution and elimination. Their decorated ornaments make a festive classroom display.

This systems escape room covers substitution, elimination and graphing in an answer-validated Google Form. Students solve their systems, then type the correct 4-letter code to move to the next puzzle. Each puzzle has 3,024 possible 4-letter code combinations, so the likelihood of students correctly guessing the code is slim. The activity also comes printable in the file.

We used these systems of equations word problem cards in my small group algebra 2 class. All systems can be solved using elimination (some of the systems need to be multiplied through first).

During our systems of equations unit, we'd also use this free systems template in my small group algebra 2 class. Students grabbed a template as they walked into the classroom, then looked to the board for what to do next. Most of the time I'd give them a system of equations to graph and solve, but sometimes I'd give two lines and ask them to find their equations.

These systems of equations references are part of an 8th grade math word wall and cover no solution, infinite solutions and one solution. The equations' tables are proportional and non-proportional, so that vocabulary is also included in this section.

Systems of equations including a linear/quadratic system are included as part of an algebra word wall where substitution and elimination are linked to graphing.

> Browse more systems of equations activities here.

Free math resource library

 

2025 consumer math curriculum update

Part of owning the Scaffolded Consumer Math Curriculum is free yearly updates to the curriculum's income taxes unit so that students always have the most up-to-date information. This update happens every January, after which you can go into your account and re-download the curriculum for free. This year's curriculum update is complete and all files are ready to be re-downloaded.

All W-2, W-4, 1040 and Schedule 1 images in the curriculum have been updated in the student book, teacher book, student notebook sheets, PowerPoints, warm-ups and quizzes. All answer keys and completed 1040s have been updated to reflect this year's numbers.

For tax year 2024, the Standard Deduction for single people increased from $13,850 to $14,600, and the additional amount added to a dependent's income on the dependents worksheet (Publication 501, Table 8) increased from $400 to $450, if they earned less than the Standard Deduction.

Some years the 1040 has changed significantly, other years it barely changes. In 2018, the 1040 was suddenly a lot shorter than previous years, but it grew back to its present size by 2022. I keep a free 1040 cheat sheet updated here every year. It's set up to help working teens file their federal income tax returns, but it can also be used for simple tax returns.

When the curriculum was first available in 2022, it was a giant zip folder. I had heard from a few teachers that the file was too big for their computers to download, so I broke the files up into individual downloads. This year, I added a "download all at once" option so that you have the choice to again download the entire curriculum in one go. The individual files are still there in case the file is too big for your internet/computer. 

You can read more about what is included in the consumer math curriculum here on my blog.

consumer math

Please send me an email to shana@scaffoldedmath.com if you have any trouble getting into your account or downloading the files.

Volume discovery lesson using kinetic sand - cylinders, cones, prisms and pyramids

This year I am tutoring kids to pass our state math and biology tests. Here in Massachusetts, the MCAS has been in place since 1993 and a graduation requirement for around 20 years. 

In November 2024, the graduation requirement was repealed, and districts are currently putting new competency standards in place. Most of my students are still coming to tutoring, and now we're allowed to have a bit more fun than just practicing on old MCAS exams. Students will still take the MCAS, it just won't prevent them from getting a diploma anymore.

The MCAS allows students a reference sheet of formulas. As is often the case, the fractions in the volume formulas can be confusing, so we did a discovery lesson. I've seen volume discovery lessons, so what we did was nothing new, but it worked so well that I wanted to share with you in case your students also struggle with the 1/3 in the pyramid and cone formulas.

Needed for this lesson: a bag of kinetic sand and a box of fillable plastic 3D shapes. I got both on Amazon. The lesson plan with worksheets for follow up is a free download here.

I wrote the volume formulas for cylinder, cone, prism and pyramid on the board, along a couple questions: 

• How many cones fit into a cylinder?
• How many pyramids fit into a prism?

We used the cube as a prism because it has the same base and height as the pyramid. The cone and cylinder have the same dimensions.

Next comes the fun part. Students fill the cone with sand and transfer the sand to the cylinder to find that 3 cones fill up a cylinder. They did the same for pyramid and prism (cube).

follow up worksheets

We go back to the questions written on the board and students can easily answer them. We then discuss how we can go from the prism/cylinder formulas to the pyramid/cone formulas with division, and that dividing by 3 is the same as multiplying by 1/3. Then students complete a couple follow up worksheets. Wouldn't it be great if the formulas used division instead fractions?

Free volume discovery lesson plan and worksheets

You can get the free, editable lesson plan and worksheets here.

More posts:

Math Word Walls

Digital Math Escape Rooms

Teaching Volume and Surface Area with Interactive Materials

Free math resource library

New Year 2025 Algebra Review Coloring Activities

In this post are two algebra review coloring activities (and one for 8th grade math) for after winter break. They can be used to refresh skills or as midterm review. The first one is a PDF coloring activity, and the second is editable, based on Facebook feedback for an editable algebra review activity.

Ease back into algebra this new year with a 2025 coloring worksheet that reviews important algebra skills. The worksheet has 15 problems covering: 

• Solving equations 
• Calculating slope 
• Exponent rules 
• Integer addition and subtraction 
• Solving systems of equations with substitution 
• Converting from standard form to slope-intercept form 

Students solve each problem then color their 2025 based on the key. There are 15 questions on the coloring sheet. Includes answer key.

New Year 2025 Algebra Review Coloring Activity

You can find this activity here.

"Is it editable?"

The above activity isn't. However, since different states cover different topics in different orders each semester, I wanted to make an algebra 1 review activity that is editable.

Editable New Year 2025 Algebra Midterm Review

Today I finished this Editable New Year 2025 Algebra 1 Midterm Review Activity that comes with 2 worksheets and a 2025 coloring sheet. Topics covered in this algebra review activity include:

• Multiplying binomials 
• Factoring quadratic trinomials 
• Finding parallel and perpendicular lines through given points
• Calculating slope and y-intercept from a table 
• Converting standard form equations to slope-intercept form 
• Identifying domain and range of graphs

This activity is editable in PowerPoint and includes 20 questions. Students answer the questions on their worksheets, then color their 2025 based on the key. An answer key is included.

More math review coloring activities:

Editable new year 8th grade math review and coloring activity

 

Editable new year 7th grade math review and coloring activity

I hope that you have a very happy New Year!

Happy New Year 2025!

More posts:

Math Word Walls

Digital Math Escape Rooms

Math Word Wall Photos Shared By Teachers

New Consumer Math Curriculum Map

"Does the consumer math curriculum include a curriculum map?"

I'm so sorry, but it doesn't.

It does!

I'm so excited to be able to share with you that the Scaffolded Consumer Math Curriculum now includes a curriculum map. You can preview the full curriculum map here. The version included with the curriculum is an editable Google Sheet.

This was something that should have been included right from the start, and I have been kicking myself for never having built a curriculum map while writing the curriculum. A couple months ago, I found a super organized, awesome, 22-year veteran teacher who was willing to take on the job, and I am SO HAPPY to now be able to say the curriculum does include a curriculum map.

Overview of the curriculum map:

The curriculum map has 2 tabs for each of the 18 curriculum units. One tab is in color and the other tab is in black & white, in case you'd prefer printing. 

The very first tab is an overview of the curriculum. From there, each tab is a detailed breakdown of what is included in each unit.

The curriculum map is an editable Google Sheet. You can download it as a Excel spreadsheet, if you prefer.

You can find the Scaffolded Consumer Math Curriculum here on my blog and here on my website for download.

The Scaffolded Consumer Math Curriculum is a printable high school math curriculum written especially for teens with mild to moderate learning disabilities. While the curriculum covers all topics all teens are interested in learning -- budgets, taxes, credit score, insurance, etc. -- it's written in a way that is approachable for students who have difficulty reading. My focus was to write a personal financial literacy curriculum that feels age-appropriate to older teens while making the material easy to understand.

BROWSE ALL CONSUMER MATH

Why does my Google Form say publish instead of send?

It looks like Google Forms is rolling out an update where Send is replaced by Publish. Once the rollout is complete, I will be updating every digital math escape room's PDF directions with this new information about publishing Google Forms instead of sending them.

In the meantime, I wanted to write a simple set of directions explaining how to navigate this new publish button that replaced the send button in Google Forms. Now instead of sending students a Google Form's link, the Form gets published and the link is shared with students. There's a cheat sheet here in my Google Drive if you'd like to print the directions.

First, open the Google Form and click the purple Publish button in the top right corner.

Next, click Manage.

Under Responder view, choose "anyone with the link".

Click Done, then click Publish.

Next, click the Published button at the top right.

Lastly, click Copy responder link. Make sure Accepting responses is clicked on.

This is the Google Forms link to share with students. Students who complete the Google Form will show up in the Responses tab.

Do your Google Forms have the publish button yet or do they still have the send button?

If you need help sending a Google Form to students working in Google Classroom, there are directions in this post.

> Browse all digital math activities.

Free math resource library