I know why you’re here.
You may not know much about Pikachu or have a clue what a Jigglypuff is, but you can appreciate the iconic status of Pokémon and how immensely excited it can make your kids.
And you're going to miss a perfect opportunity to channel that enthusiasm towards genuine learning opportunities.
So, are you ready to elevate your teacher status to Legendary and empower your kids to become Pokémon masters?
The following list of ideas, activities, and examples of how teachers can use Pokémon to teach math will get you started. These activities can be used as described or tweaked in any way you want to best meet the needs of your kids.
1.) Coordinates and Graphing
A Pokémon master is willing to go out and explore her world to find and capture as many creatures as she can. Using the grid shown, you can have students navigate the coordinate plane in their quest to capture Pokémon.
Try this: Have your students start at a PokeStop and have them try to find the optimal route to catch every Pokémon, given that you can only capture three at a time before returning to a PokeStop to get more Pokeballs.
Elementary Application: Have your kids find the coordinates of each Pokémon.
Middle School Application: Incorporate elements of area and perimeter.
High School Application: Incorporate distance formula.
Some Pokémon are rarer than others and the most powerful ones are in short supply and difficult to find.
You can tie this idea into teaching probability by turning your classroom into an environment where Pokémon are hiding around every corner! Cut out and distribute the Pokémon icons on the chart all around your classroom, and let the hunt begin!
Give students a few minutes to search for them all and complete the corresponding tally chart.
Once your kids have collected their data, you can explore predicting outcomes (in this case, finding a particular Pokémon).
3.) Ratios and Proportions
This idea comes from the blog post How To Use Pokémon Go In Your Math Class on tips4teachers.net.
There are many ways to incorporate Pokémon into your ratios and proportions unit.
Here's an example:
Ash Ketchum is catching 2 Pokémon every 6 minutes while Brock is catching 5 Pokémon every 15 minutes. Are they catching Pokémon at an equivalent rate or are is one person catching them faster than the other? How do you know? (7.RP.A.2.A) What is the “constant of proportionality” for each person? (7.RP.A.2.B)
You can also have students complete the tally chart from the last example and then explore the ratios between the frequencies of each Pokémon.
4.) Venn Diagrams
There are many ways to classify and categorize Pokémon. Some distinctions include their source of power (fire, water, electricity, etc.), how they move around (flying, swimming, teleportation, etc.), and individual abilities (fighting, defending, mind controlling, etc.).
Using double, triple, and quadruple Venn Diagrams is a great way for kids to think about the different ways to classify Pokémon and identify similarities and differences.
You can have students cut out icons for 20 different Pokémon and distribute them on a Venn Diagram using categories of their choosing.
Do you have any questions or ideas for improving this lesson? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
By Anthony Persico
Anthony is the content crafter and head educator for YouTube's MashUp Math and an advisor to Amazon Education's 'With Math I Can' Campaign. You can often find me happily developing animated math lessons to share on my YouTube channel . Or spending way too much time at the gym or playing on my phone.