Pacman

Even today's kids know Pacman, so what better way to get their attention in Arithmetic when teaching the concept of greater than, less than, or equal to.  I used yellow construction paper (will use yellow poster board next time), traced some circles and cut them out with a mouth, and placed them on the board with the math problems.  When I first did this, I also put dots on the board with marker in a pattern around the problems, and placed the little pacmen on the pattern.  When teaching it, I asked the students which number would help Pacman win faster.  Of course he wants the higher number of dots because that would help him win.  So if the number is on the left that number is greater than the number on the right, so the mouth faces that way, and vice versa for less than.  Then I have the students come up and answer the problem by placing the Pacman the correct way in the math problem.
When they first walked into the classroom it definitely got their attention to see the little Pacman characters on the board...wondering what we were going to do with them...yet having to wait until we got to Arithmetic class to find out.  Great teaser!!  They enjoyed coming up to the board and putting them the proper way.  It was a great, fun lesson!