4 Creative Math Project Ideas for Upper Elementary

Looking for engaging, real-world ways to make math meaningful for your students? You’re in the right place!

Today, I’m sharing four of my favorite hands-on math projects that will not only get your students excited about math but also help them see its real-life applications.

Each project is easy to implement and requires minimal prep. Your students will enjoy these math projects so much they might even start asking for more math time!

Dream Bedroom Math Project

The Design a Dream Bedroom math project challenges students to use their knowledge of area, perimeter, surface area, adding decimals, and multiplication as they design and decorate their dream bedroom.

Students will:

Use grid paper to sketch a layout of their dream bedroom.
Use furniture dimensions to select and arrange furniture to fit within their available space.
Calculate the area of the floor to determine how many square feet (or meters) of carpet or tile they need.
Find the surface area of the walls to figure out how much paint or wallpaper is needed.
Keep track of their spending on supplies, furniture, and accessories.

This real-world math application is highly engaging and applicable to the lives of upper elementary students.

Students love to have independence and make their own choices. This project gives them a chase to showcase their individual style, interests, and hobbies in a personalized math project.

A 3-D model of a completed dream bedroom math project next to a furniture dimensions reference sheet

As a bonus, students can create a 3D model of their dream bedroom! Students use nets of prisms to build their furniture and decorate their bedroom to reflect the floor plans and purchases in the first part of the project.

Your students will love the opportunity to use their imagination and creativity as they become interior designers and design their dream bedroom using their math skills.

CLICK HERE to get the ready to use Dream Bedroom math project.

Geometry City Math Project

A completed geometry city design next to a variety of colored pencils

The Geometry City math project is a unique and engaging way for students to explore the world of geometry.

This project gives students the opportunity to showcase their understanding of different types of angles and lines as they design their own city that follows a set of specific guidelines.

Students will:

Create a one of a kind city layout that showcases their personality and interests.
Follow a set of guidelines to create roads that intersect to make different types of angles, or that run parallel or perpendicular to each other.
Arrange buildings, houses, parks and more at specified angles or line locations.
Add color and additional features of their choice to complete their ‘Geometry City’.

Geometry city city map with parallel lines, perpendicular lines, and different types of angles

This math project provides students with a real-world application connecting geometry concepts to the world around them and making math relevant and meaningful.

Your students will love the opportunity to use their imagination and creativity to build their own city while also improving their geometry skills.

CLICK HERE to learn more about the Geometry City math project

Million Dollar Math Project

The Million Dollar Math Project is a fun and personalized way for students to learn about budgeting and financial planning.

This project challenges students to use their skills in adding decimals, tracking spending, and graphing as they are given one million dollars to make both required and optional purchases.

Students will:

Make decisions about how to allocate their budget as they purchase items such as a house, car, clothing, and entertainment.
Add and subtract decimals to calculate expenses and keep a running total of money spent.
Multiply decimals (or use repeated addition) to determine costs for items purchased in bulk.
Have a better understanding of the cost of things in their world, and the magnitude of one million dollars.

This math project gives students an understanding of the value of money and the importance of budgeting and financial planning.

million dollar math project spending tracker next to a green notebook and scattered coins

Your students will love the opportunity to see what a million dollars can buy while also improving their math skills. Kids love to see what it really costs to purchase all of the things they dream of having!

This project will make math relevant and meaningful to your students and give them the opportunity to think critically about budgeting and finances.

CLICK HERE to see the Million Dollar math project.

Data and Graphing Project

a circle graph and a pictogram created to show the results of a favorite ice cream survey

This math project gives students the opportunity learn more about their classmates as they apply their math skills in a real-world context by collecting, organizing, and analyzing data.

Students will:

Choose their own topic of interest.
Develop a survey question based on their topic. This is great practice in how to create a good survey question that will result in the type of data you are hoping to collect.
Gather data from their classmates.
Organize and analyze their data
Create a variety of graphs to best display their data

Making graphs to show the results of their survey is extra fun when students are using data about their classmates!

Sharing and displaying students’ final projects is a great way to help your students get to know more about their classmates and make connections with their peers.

As a bonus, you could even discuss misleading data and misleading graphs, then have students use their survey data to create their own misleading graph. This is an important media literacy skill all kids should be informed about!

CLICK HERE to get the ready to use Data and Graphing Project.

Conclusion

Incorporating real-world math projects into your plans can make a huge difference in your students’ engagement and mindset about math. These projects provide hands-on learning experiences that connect the dots between math concepts and everyday applications.

If you love the project ideas shared in this post and want to bring them all to your classroom, you’re in luck! I’ve bundled all four projects into one comprehensive resource:

This math project bundle provides everything you need to help your students connect math to the real world while keeping them engaged and motivated. Whether you’re teaching area and perimeter, angles, decimals, or graphing, these projects will bring your math lessons to life.

Your students will love completing math projects as a way to be able to show what they know about the math skills they have learned.