Math Games

Posted by HeatherW | 0 comments

As much of a living math person as I prefer to be in our homeschool, sometimes kids just have to muscle out the math facts. We all know how much of a drudge that can be when your student doesn’t want to play along. So, as most thoughtful teachers will do, I try to think of ways I can sneak those extra practice moments in without making it super dull or super obvious.

Enter games! Yes, there are plenty of math games out there on the market, but you might be surprised at the number of games you can play with your kids that are not specifically known for being math games yet math is pretty central to the game play. I’ll list a few.

At our house Monopoly is one of the favorites. Last spring, the kids got on a Monopoly kick that lasted for many weeks. We even learned the history of the game and some new strategies the kids were able to employ. The Monopoly Book might be available at your local library. I picked it up on a whim and it provided a great living math read for our kids. The subtitle read, “Strategies and Tactics of the World’s Most Popular Game”. Kids clamoring to beat out each other in a game are only too willing to read and apply their new found knowledge! This was such an interesting topic for us that I did ask the kids to do a math journal page on Monopoly Math- they had to list and draw out what math skills they used to play the game well. What a fabulous exercise! If your kids aren’t up to that task, then stick with the basic game play and they will be practicing an awful lot of math.

Yahtzee! is another game we enjoy. I remember well sitting with my mom playing endless rounds of this rummy dice game. Her logic? Once it was time to tally the final score, I was going to have to do a lot of two column addition to get there! Now I play with my own kids and not only do we use written two column addition, but we use it as a way to practice mental addition as well. No one minds adding up to find a score at the end, right? We all want to see who wins the round.

Almost every child I’ve ever known loves to play War with a deck of cards. Why not up the ante on traditional war by having the kids flip two cards over rather than just one. Then they will have to total the cards in order to know who has the bigger total. You could require addition or multiplication for this game.

In addition to giving kids more math fact practice in an applied situation, games require other math skills regularly- things like sorting, patterning, spatial reasoning, sequencing, and strategy (which requires logic skills). Here is a list of our favorite strategy games we play often:

• Settlers of Catan (with any and all expansions/editions)
• Ticket to Ride- US and Europe with the Expansions
• The Amazing Labyrinth
• Clue
• Pente
• Chess
• Carcassone
• Blokus (any version- they have a triangle based one and a 3D version that are both very good in addition to the original)
• Stratego
• Risk
• Catan the Card Game
• Ticket to Ride Card Game
• Othello
• Mastermind
• Sequence
• Sequence Dice

Of course I admit that sometimes we play math games that are just plain old math games. I promise not to leave them out. We like Beach Ball Math where we take beach balls covered with math sentences and throw them around. When you catch it, you have to say the answer to the equation nearest your right thumb (or you can name another part of your hand). That one is good for rainy day and outdoor play alike. I’ve also had number squares on the floor and had all of my kids up to play. The oldest might have to solve for a variable while another has to do a multiplication or addition fact. My youngest will simply hop to numbers by identifying the number correctly. Equate is a game that plays like Scrabble but with math equations instead. They have various tile sets for different levels of play. Math Dice is a great game which travels really well. RightStart Math has a series of card games and a manual to match and our favorite by far is Corners. This one practices multiples of five up to twenty. Finally, if you like to make your own math learning games, Game for Math by Peggy Kaye is a great place to start.

However you choose to practice the facts with your kids, consider a game instead of the flash cards. Games are a fantastic way to sit down and be present with your kids while having a good time too. Your quality time child will revel in the bonus time together. Plus, don’t forget that a regular diet of games helps your student to hone other math reasoning skills- all in the name of fun.

Heather is a homeschooling mom of four kids ranging from middle school to preschool and wife to a handsome chemical engineer. Before raising a family, she taught middle school science (with a BS in biological sciences) and has a masters degree in curriculum and instruction secondary education. Now teaching at home means the chance to provide the extraordinary for her children. She’s been homeschooling five years and you can read about those adventures on her blog, Blog She Wrote.