Building Math Competencies for Kindergarten Students Through Basketball Math

Basketball math is a game that is quickly catching on all across the country. There is an entire playground system consisting of multiple games that incorporate math into the game-play itself. For instance, you have a basketball hoop, and you throw a ball at a basket, making baskets with two, three, four, five, six or more players depending on the size of the court. The math score is based on the total points scored by each player on the basketball court. A player with the highest mathematical score becomes the math champion. You can test your basketball math skills all by yourself, with our free Basketball Math Playground Game.

Basketball Math is an exciting curriculum development program designed for kindergarten through second grade students in the Omaha Public Schools. In the first year, it is strongly associated with the Common Core Standards for Mathematics, so teachers use it to reinforce basic math concepts and help develop teaching strategies for the classroom. In the third and fourth year, the program moves away from the standard math content and includes advanced topics, including algebra, geometry, statistics, probability, and calculus. This move allows educators to better teach students to think critically about the subject matter they are being taught, as well as building up their self-confidence to excel at math challenges in higher education. Since basketball is a team sport, developing math skills for teams helps improve the whole team atmosphere.

Basketball math is not just about improving game play for a basketball team. It also builds critical thinking skills and encourages the development of organized, sequential processes, such as teamwork and problem solving. Many of the lessons in the curriculum involve real life examples from real students’ lives. One such lesson, for example, is about how to get along with other students to win friendships. Based on real statistics, students learn how to interpret school rankings and test scores, which they can then apply to their own lives and the lives of others.