Cross the Finish Line with 9 Racing-Themed Activities

May has arrived, and the end of the school year is in sight for many of us, but there’s still important work to be done in the weeks ahead! Let’s rev up our engines, lean into the turn, and accelerate down the final straightaway with these free online math and reading racing-themed activities from eSpark’s playfully personalized K-5 curriculum.

If you’ve already been eSparking this year, you may be familiar with the format of these activities—feel free to access them directly using the links below or assign them to your students via the SGS links. If you aren’t already using eSpark, follow the sign up link above to get started and see how you can incorporate these activities into your lessons, interventions, and centers!

 

Pre-K and Kindergarten

1. JUNGLE RACERS: OPPOSITES EDITION

Three different colored cars with three different animal drivers are racing through the jungle.

What’s the opposite of boring? This game! Students get to pick their racer and their car, then try to identify antonyms based on prompts along the way. Visual supports are included for young readers who need additional scaffolding.

 

2. SIGHT WORD SLEDDING

A dog on a sled faces four sight words blocking its path down the hill.

Racing isn’t just a summer activity! In Sight Word Sledding, students choose their favorite doggo and sled combo, then pick the sight words they hear spoken aloud along the way. Every correct answer moves the racer to the fast lane, propelling them to victory down the mountain.

 

3. Downhill Derby: Add and Subtract

A rabbit in a derby car faces an addition problem on its way down a hill.

Students lead their rabbit racer against some of the other fastest members of the animal kingdom by solving simple addition problems using digits between 1 and 5. It’s fact fluency with a speedy twist.

 

1st and 2nd Grade

4. MOTOCROSS SIGHT WORDS

An alligator on its bike sits in front of a hurdle. There is a multiple choice problem at the bottom of the screen asking players to select the correct sight word.

Mix some tricks into your time trials with this fun, two-wheeled solo race activity. Students zoom along with Chance the Snapper by identifying the sight word they hear spoken aloud each time they reach a hurdle.

 

5. JUNGLE RACERS: AFFIXES EDITION

We can vaguely see racing cars in the background, but the foreground is dominated by a multiple choice question asking students to identify the root word of "untangle."

  • Skill: Root words
  • This activity is not currently featured in a Small Group Skill

It’s another race through the jungle, but this time the speed boost comes from accurate identification of root words surrounded by prefixes and suffixes.

 

6. Flamingo Number Run

A pink flamingo stands in front of a marshland with the title "Flamingo Number Run" in script at the top of the image.

Not every race needs opponents and a finish line! In this activity, students run and jump through the water by identifying whether a given comparison is true or false. Students will need to stay focused to avoid slowing Flippy down with wrong answers.

 

3rd Grade +

7. WINNING THE RACE

A boy approaching a checkered finish line with a full poem in the left-hand sidebar.

  • Skill: Literal vs. non-literal language
  • This activity is not currently featured in a Small Group Skill

This fun, animated poem can support a variety of lessons, including idioms and figurative language. Moving illustrations add fun visual support throughout the course of the story, and the surprise ending should get a chuckle from students who are paying attention.

 

8. Cheetah Chaser

A cheetah races across the savannah with a multipilcation math problem in the foreground.

What better animal for our racing-themed curation than the fastest member of the animal kingdom? In this game, Chance the Cheetah races and jumps through the savanna as students identify which answers make an equation accurate while flipping between multiplication and division.

 

9. Downhill Derby: Multiply by 7

A rabbit in a derby car faces a multiplication problem on its way down the hill.

The Downhill Derby is back with a hyper-specific fact fluency focus. Students will work with a large sample of single digit multiples of seven while racing against their CPU opponents. This all begs the question: Why is six afraid of seven? Because seven ate nine!

 

Let’s finish strong together!

We know how tough it can be to keep students dialed in for the months of May and June, but we’ve got all kinds of fun activities to keep the momentum going strong. eSpark offers the best of both worlds in terms of play-based learning opportunities and evidence-based instruction, with the end goal of delivering engagement you can feel and results you can see in your classroom. From independent practice to small group breakouts and formative assessment, eSpark can fill a variety of needs for students of all ability levels and backgrounds.

Click the link at the top of the screen to sign up for your free account today. Welcome to the next evolution of personalized learning!

 

Additional resources

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