Teachers, are you constantly trying to find creative, exciting and innovative ways to engage your students in math concepts? Math can often be an intimidating subject that causes anxiety and sweaty palms before a test. Finding ways to relate math to our everyday world can make difficult concepts come alive for your students. Cue the fanfare because Nickelodeon NFL Slimetime Tabletop Football League is here to do the heavy lifting for you and will be a huge win in your classroom.

Remember when you were in grade school and during indoor recess, kids would gather around a table as others played paper football? Ruled paper would be intricately folded to form a tightly packed, triangular-shaped ball, that could be “kicked” or flicked thru the opponents upright “field goal posts”. These were created by making an “L” with each hand and connecting thumbs together to form the uprights of a field goal. The challenge was to continue increasing the level of difficulty by increasing the distance between where the football was placed and the finger uprights. Epic battles were held on those grade school laminated tables!

Tabletop football has provided hours of entertainment for kids of all ages throughout the decades, and now Nickelodeon is giving it a new Slimetime twist! Using paper footballs and finger goal posts, let’s turn this recess game into an interactive, highly engaging lesson on measurement! The purpose of this exercise is to learn about measurement and your class will be measuring their “field goals” with a tape measure or ruler. They will record their measurements each time they play a different opponent.

First, divide your class into teams of two to three kids per team. Teams can choose their name so get creative! From Klass Kickers to Measuring Monsters or even their favorite NFL team, the possibilities are endless!

Next, use these step by step directions for each of the teams to make their own paper football. They can decorate their football however they choose but make sure their team name is on it for recording purposes!

Record all of the team names on this handy Nickelodeon NFL Slimetime Table Top Football League Scoreboard. Each team will play each other at least once, and will record the results of their field goal attempts. Each team has up to three three attempts to get a field goal per match, to keep the game moving quickly. If a field goal is completed on the first attempt, try and increase the distance between the football and the goal post! Don’t forget to record your successful field goals by measuring from where the ball was flicked to the goal post!

Once the teams have played each other, the math fun begins! Which team had the longest flick? Which team completed the most field goals? Did anyone modify their football and did it impact the success/failure rate of the ball? The opportunities to augment and expand upon this lesson are endless! The class measured the field goals in inches. Can they convert those inches into yards? A regulation NFL field is 360 feet, how many yards is that?

We love this game as a unique way to learn about measurement for multiple reasons: There are myriad ways to expand this lesson, maybe you can look at some NFL statistics. Who is the best field goal kicker in the league and why? Learning how to read and interpret statistics is a great way to take this measurement lesson to the next level! We also love that everyone gets to participate in both recording, measuring and flicking. Teamwork makes the dream work! And lastly, we love that Nickelodeon has elevated this classic playground game into an imaginative game that is exciting and innovative, by using a paper football and finger goal posts!

Take pictures of your classes head to head tabletop football games and let the measuring begin! Share on social media and tag us with #gonoodle, we would love to see all the learning going on in your classrooms!