One thing I have learned about math with my children, if we continue to review the basics during breaks or vacation from school math goes a lot easier when we start up again. Here are some of the quick games and activities we do to keep their skills sharp.
Math War (a favorite): Use any deck of cards that contain numbers, shuffle them and divide them up evenly between two players. Before play begins decide which math function will be reviewed for the game – addition, subtraction, or multiplication. (This doesn’t work well with division) Each player flips over a card at the same time, looks at the two numbers and figures out the answer in his head, calling out the number. This is great for subtraction for the littler ones as they must first figure out the largest number to subtract from. Sometimes we pair up older kids with younger ones – the older ones have to multiply the numbers while the younger ones just have to add.
Jump Rope Math: This can be done either with a regular jump rope for one child or get a long jump rope to involve more children.
- Variation 1: As the child jumps give them a math problem to solve. They repeat the math equation and then jump the answer – “4 + 5 is 9, 1, 2, 3, 4 . . . .” etc.
- Variation 2: Two children turn a long jump rope. They each yell out a number. The one jumping combines the numbers (either multiplies, adds or subtracts depending on what they need practice with) and jumps the answer like in variation 1.
Do a sudoku puzzle. Online games at Funbrain or printable ones from About.com.
Play Rush Hour. You may not think math is involved but it is great for boosting problem-solving and logical thinking abilities. We have the game from MindWare but there is an online version here.
Play Set
Again another problem-solving logic game that is really fun to play.
Worksheets. We print ours from Math Fact Cafe and SuperKids Math.
Water Painting. I give the child a spray bottle full of water and tell them a math equation. Using the spray bottle they “write” the equation and answer on the sidewalk.
Online math games. The ones at Sheppard Software are the best! They cover basics, fractions, time, money, decimals, measurement, and even pre-algebra.
Store. We set up a fake store with prices on things, give the kids play money, and let them shop. The cashier has to calculate the total without a calculator first, counts out change, etc. A calculator can be used to check for the correct answer.
What math games do you like to play?
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Love all these ideas and links! Thanks for sharing!
We just bought “Sorry Revenge” it is a great math type game too. My boys don’t even know they are adding and whatnot when they play it. 🙂 Thanks for some new links I will have to check out.
One way we play math war to make it less competitive (I have aggressive boys) is to have each child flip 2 cards and then add, or subtract, or multiply the two cards in front of them. Then whoever has the greater sum (or product, etc.) takes all four cards.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!! I have been wracking my brain trying to come up with fun ways to keep math “facts” in our lives. My daughters LOVE to figure out story problems, but they hate to remember basic computation. . . I’m not quite sure how that works, but somehow it does.
Suduko and Set and Rush Hour are regulars in our house. We are math freaks, here, though. Mindware is one of my favorite places to order from.
We make “Fraction Creatures”. We have circles cut into different fractions by color (all thirds are green…). We started using them when doubling recipes (how much flour do we need if it asked for 1 3/4 cup and we are tripling it). My five year old who didn’t quite get that yet started making a robot out of the shapes. We added his creature together–starting with adding all like fraction parts together, then those parts together until its been reduced to a single mixed fraction. We use a chart to help keep the steps organized. Here are some pictures to help make sense of my explanation. (we usually only add the small creatures–the big ones are just for fun)
https://picasaweb.google.com/106330840857661123270/FractionFun?authuser=0&feat=directlink
We also love to play store, Suduko, Set, chess, trangrams, and an assortment of puzzles and riddle games. My husband and I love math.
One game I really liked using with my students when I was a math teacher is 24. I use cards but only 1-9 (not sure if this works for higher numbers or not). You take 4. You can use addition, subtraction, multiplication and/or division to get to 24. Note- it ALWAYS works. Some are trickier than others, but it always works. Some times you only one operation, sometimes you use 3 operations. You have to use each card exactly once. For example let’s say you have 4, 5, 2, 8. 8-5=3; 4*2=8; 3*8=24.