Making Math Fun Through Football

Hi again! I hope that you Saturday has been great! The weather sure has been!

As a mom of three boys, I'm always trying to find different ways to get my sons more interested in their academics. They are really good athletes and are very involved in sports. They get good grades, but they don't seem to have the passion for learning like they do for sports. They especially don't have a desire for reading. In order to get them to read more I get them Sports Illustrated, but I really haven't thought of a bunch of ways to involve math. I guess that's partly because my boys really enjoy math and seem to get it.
Today, however, as I sat at my fourth football game this week, Wednesday, Middle School; Thursday, JV; Friday, Varsity; and Saturday, Cowboy mini mites; I thought you know there is a lot of math to be learned watching football.
I thought about what our Math professor discussed on Wednesday; we don't realize that we have been exposed to algebra and problem solving from a very early age. Who doesn't remember filling in the blanks on a math worksheet? Remember these..._ +3 = 5? I never made the connection that the x is just a symbol used in place of that blank spot. I never thought of the blank spot to be a variable. It was like a light bulb went off.
So as I sat in the stands watching our Cowboys inch their way down the field, I started asking the kids around me math questions. I asked them after a four yard run, "How much further do we need to go to get a first down." When we were on the twenty five yard line, I asked, " How many plays will we have to run if they only get five yards each run?" My boys answered each question without hesitation; and they were right! I felt pretty smug, I had them doing math and they didn't realize it.
I came home and Googled football math, I found quite a few websites. The following is fun for early elementary age. http://www.mrnussbaum.com/mathball/index.html The game is called Tackle Math.