Having Fun with Math Games

The old-fashioned method of solving problems from a textbook was not getting the job done at Hanover-Horton Elementary School.

So the school took a new approach to math education Wednesday – games.

Take a look at how Hanover-Horton Elementary School students are using board game to improve math skills.

This Michigan school is typical of most elementary schools – they are looking for ways to energize their math curriculum and engage their students. Math games are an enormously effective way of doing both.

Multiplication Games

More and more in my teaching career, I see that children struggle to memorize their multiplication tables. I’ve even worked in many 6th grade classrooms where it was perfectly evident that a majority of the 6th graders had not yet fully memorized their multiplication tables.

Simple multiplication is usually introduced into the math curriculum in 2nd grade, so it is important that 2nd and 3rd graders begin to get a strong handle on their multiplication facts. If they don’t, understanding division becomes ever more difficult.

I’ve found that multiplication games are wonderfully useful. Multiplication games put children in exactly the right frame of mind for learning. Children are normally very eager to play games. They relax when they play, and they concentrate. They don’t mind repeating the multiplication facts over and over.

Teachers and parents are partners in this process, and both can offer greater opportunities for their students/child to succeed in memorizing the multiplication tables. Multiplication games fit the bill wonderfully!

One of my favorite multiplication games is Multiplication Fact Feud. It’s a great way target and practice certain facts.

Multiplication Fact Feud

What you need:
2 players
deck of cards

Teacher or parent decides the particular multiplication fact to practice
(i.e. x7, x4, x8, etc.) Once the constant factor is determined, that card is placed between the two players. Players then divide the remaining cards evenly between themselves.

Each player turns over one card and multiplies that card by the constant in the middle. Players must verbalize their math sentence. The player with the highest product collects both cards.

Example: Player #1 Player #2
4 5 7
“4 x 5 = 20” “7 x 5 = 35”

Player #2 would collect both cards.

In the event of a tie (i.e. both players have the same product), each player turns over one more card and multiplies that by the constant factor. The player with the highest product wins all four cards.

When the cards are all used up, the player with the most cards wins the game.

Play a Math Game and Have Fun!

Have you ever heard a child laugh out loud or shout for joy in math class? I have, and it happened many times when the students were playing a math game.

Children throw themselves into playing math games the way they never throw themselves into filling out workbook pages or dittos.

Math games are engaging and easily maintain the interest of the students. I’ve regularly had students beg to stay in from recess so that they could continue playing a favorite math game. That’s never happened when they were completing a ditto or workbook page.

Research has demonstrated that students learn more if they are actively engaged with the math they are studying. Constance Kamii, a world renowned expert on how children learn math, puts it this way, “Children who are mentally active develop faster than those who are passive.”

Active learning is, in short, anything that students do in a classroom other than merely listen to a teacher’s lecture or quietly fill out a workbook page. There are several ways of doing this. Playing math games is a particularly useful and effective one.

Math games:
1. provoke students into discussing, explaining, and thinking
2. challenge and interest students
3. get students actively involved in their learning
4. result in learning
5. provide some immediate assessment

And lastly, but perhaps more importantly, math games teach or reinforce many of the skills that a formal curriculum teaches, plus a skill that formal learning sometimes, mistakenly, leaves out – the skill of having fun with math, of thinking hard and enjoying it.

In the process of playing the game, students may develop initiative, interest, curiosity, resourcefulness, independence, and responsibility. Would that happen with a ditto or workbook page?

Children learn math best when they participate in games that are relevant to them, hold their attention, and require them to “make meaning” for themselves.

Teaching methods that stress rote memorization of basic number facts or algorithmic procedures are usually boring and do not require learners to participate actively in thought and reflection.

Counting with Young Children

As a teacher, I have found that the most important thing parents can do to support their young child’s mathematical growth is to count things.

Encourage your 3-to-6 year old to count all kinds of collections! This will provide your child with rich opportunities to practice oral counting, develop more efficient counting strategies, group objects in strategic ways, record numbers, and represent their thinking.

Research shows that counting is one of the best ways to help children build number sense. Children need lots of experiences with counting to learn which number comes next, how this number sequence is related to the objects they are counting, and how to keep track of which ones have been counted and which still need to be counted.

Experience with counting provides a solid foundation for future experiences with addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

Count everything in all places and situations. Count fingers of everyone in the car; count french fries in the McDonald’s bag (is every little white bag filled with exactly the same number of fries?); count silverware needed for the whole family for supper; count coins in Dad’s pockets; count lights in the house; count legs (people, animals, tables, chairs, etc.). You get the idea!

When they get good at counting things, ask them to write down (in crayon or ink) an estimate of how many things they think are in the collection they are about to count. Now count that collection and see how close their actual count was to their estimate. The more they make these estimates, the better they will get.

Number recognition is a second skill young children need to acquire. Cover Up! is a great game for helping children with number recognition. They will work on number recognition from 1-6 in this game. When they have mastered this, try the variation which involves number recognition to 12 and simple addition.

Cover Up!

What you need:
2 players
1 die
paper and pencils
number line for each player – write
(big) the numbers 1 through 6 in a
horizontal line (1 2 3 4 5 6)
6 counters (paper clips, beans,
pennies, etc. for each player

The winner of Cover Up! is the first person to put a marker on all six numbers.

Players take turns rolling the die and putting a marker on the corresponding number on his/her number line. If a number already has a marker on it, that player loses his/her turn.

Variation: Roll two dice and add them together. Each player will need
a 2-12 number line.

This game seems simple, but it really helps young children recognize the dots on the dice. When they begin, they may need to count the dots each time, but soon they ought to learn what number the dots represent without counting them.

An Essential Math Game for First Graders

Same Sums is a perfect math game for First Graders. It allows everyone to practice those addition facts to 10 that are so important. Children need to have them in long term memory as soon as possible. Research shows that young children who do not have all their addition facts to 10 in long-term memory are going to struggle with subtraction. It makes sense. If a child does not automatically know that 3+4=7, they are going to struggle to calculate 7-3=?.

Same Sums also helps children understand the meaning of the = (equal) sign. Many people think it just means “now find the answer”. Children need to understand that the equation must be equal (balanced) on both sides of the = sign.

Same Sums

What you need:
2 players
24 index cards

Write one fact on each card – see the facts below.
Turn all the cards face down in 6 rows of 4 cards each.

Player #1 turns over two cards. If the sums match, player #1 keeps both cards. If the sums do not match, he/she turns the two cards back over.

Player # 2 does the same.

Play continues until all the cards are matched. The person with the most cards wins the game.

Same Sums facts:

1 + 1
2 + 0
1 + 2
0 + 3
2 + 2
3 + 1
2 + 3
1 + 4
4 + 1
3 + 2
3 + 3
4 + 2
1 + 5
6 + 0
2 + 1
3 + 0
1 + 3
4 + 0
5 + 0
0 + 5
2 + 4
5 + 1
5 + 2
4 + 3

Teaching Math at Home

Many parents don’t feel comfortable with math, or they assume it takes special expertise to teach it. Remarks like “I never was any good at math” or “How can I help my child with math? I can’t even balance my checkbook!” are common. However, even parents who feel this way use mathematics all the time. They hand out lunch money, cut sandwiches into quarters, calculate how much paint or wall paper they need to buy, estimate how much a trip will cost, read and interpret graphs, talk about the probability of rain, and decide that it’s time to fill the gas tank. Some of them knit, piece quilts, measure wood for cutting, decide how many cups of spaghetti sauce they need to make for 6 people, and use metric tools to work on their cars. The list goes on and on.

Many adults also feel they aren’t doing things the right way, that they aren’t really using mathematics, because their approaches, even though they work, are not the methods they learned in school. There are, in fact, many ways to do mathematics, and more than one can be right. People who devise their own strategies for finding answers to mathematical questions, far from being mathematically incompetent, are often excellent independent problem solvers. They are using mathematics creatively.

You have what you need to help your child with math because:

1. You have a great deal of important mathematical knowledge to share.
2. Children learn best from the people who most accept and respect them.
3. Learning is more lasting when it takes place in the context of familiar home experiences.
4. Children must see that math is not just a subject studied in school but is used constantly in everyday family life.

The home is an ideal place in which to learn mathematics because the problems encountered there are real, not just paragraphs in textbooks.

Making Math Part of Your Family’s Life

It’s common knowledge that young children whose parents read to them have a tremendous advantage in school. But did you know that you can also help your child learn mathematics by doing and supporting math at home?

Today mathematics is more critical to school success than ever before. Modern occupations now require a firm foundation in mathematics – and that’s true for almost any type of job your child will consider in the future.

How you encourage and promote your child’s math learning, from preschool to high school, can be pivotal to their attitude toward math and their achievement in this subject area. Children are taught math in school, but research shows that families are an essential part of this learning process. In other words, by doing math with your child and supporting math learning at home, you can make a great difference.

There are many ways to make math part of your family’s life. Consider the following checklist of key ideas:

• Always talk about math in positive ways. Regardless of your own math background, let your child know that learning math is very important. Communicating a positive, can-do attitude about math is the single most important way for you to ensure that your child is successful in math. Never tell your child that math is too hard or that you hated it or weren’t good at it when you were in school.

• Make math an everyday part of your family. Find math at home. Spend time with your child on simple board games, puzzles, and activities that involve math. Involve your child in activities like shopping, cooking, and home fix-it projects to show them that math is practical and useful.

• Notice math in the world. You can help your child see the usefulness of math by pointing it out wherever you see it – not just in your home. What shape is that building? How many more miles before we get there? How many glasses of milk are in a carton? How much will you save if you buy a combo meal at McDonald’s?

Parents as Math Teachers

Parents, Children, and Math Games

Math games for kids and families are the perfect way to reinforce and extend the skills children learn at school. They can also be a dynamic, motivating mathematics instructional tool for homeschoolers. They are one of the most effective ways that parents can develop their child’s math skills without lecturing or applying pressure. When studying math, there’s an element of repetition that’s an important part of learning new concepts and developing automatic recall of math facts. Number facts (remember those times tables?) can be boring and tedious to learn and practice. A game can generate an enormous amount of practice – practice that does not have kids complaining about how much work they are having to do. What better way can there be than an interesting game as a way of mastering them?

Games are fun and create a context for developing children’s mathematical reasoning. Through playing and analyzing games, children also gain computational fluency by describing more efficient strategies and discussing relationships among numbers.

Games offer a pleasant way for parents of homeschoolers to energize the memorization of basic math skills.

Here are some other benefits of using math games in the homeschooling context:

• Meets your state’s grade-level mathematics standards
• Easily linked to your child’s mathematics textbook
• Offers many opportunities for you to discover your child’s strengths and weaknesses
• Meets the needs of diverse learners, such as English-language learners and special needs children
• Supports concept development in math
• Encourages mathematical reasoning
• Engaging (maintains interest)
• Repeatable (reuse often & sustain involvement)
• Open-ended (allows for multiple approaches & solutions)
• Easy to prepare
• Easy to vary for extended use such as making any game harder, easier, or just meeting the needs of your child
• Improves basic skills, i.e., addition and multiplication facts
• Enhances number and operation sense
• Encourages strategic thinking
• Promotes mathematical communication
• Promotes positive attitudes toward math

Teachers Search for Ways to Energize Math

As an independent, elementary mathematics consultant, I work with elementary teachers all the time as they search for ways to motivate and energize their students in math. I just read the following article about Indiana elementary teachers on that very quest. Take a look at how a grant brought together ISU professors and Vincennes teachers.

One of the instructional strategies they are trying are math games, an effective, hands-on way to teach math concepts. No matter which textbook your district uses, games can easily be incorporated into instruction. Some textbook companies are “seeing the light” and have begun to implement games as a part of each unit.

Even if your textbook does not incorporate games, identify a skill need almost all your students have, and give a game a try. I guarantee it will be more of a learning experience for the students and more informative for you of what your students know and can do than a workbook page.

Here are some of the many benefits of using math games in the classroom:

• Meets your state’s elementary mathematics standards
• Easily linked to any mathematics textbook
• Offers multiple assessment opportunities
• Meets the needs of diverse learners
• Supports concept development in math
• Encourages mathematical reasoning
• Engaging (maintains interest)
• Repeatable (reuse often & sustain involvement)
• Open-Ended (allows for multiple approaches & solutions)
• Easy to prepare
• Easy to vary for extended use & differentiated instruction
• Improves basic skills
• Enhances number and operation sense
• Encourages strategic thinking
• Promotes mathematical communication
• Promotes positive attitudes toward math
• Encourages parent involvement

Playing Math Games with Your Children

Steve Glinberg has just released the 10th update of KidCalc Math Fun for iPhone and iPod Touch, which targets children ages 3-8 years old.

There is no doubt in my mind that, as the Internet continues to play a larger role in education, a growing number of online sites will host free math games, most of which are challenging, exciting, fun, and age-appropriate. That’s all well and good.

But above all else, children crave time spent with their parents. Because learning is a social process, children learn best through fun games and activities that involve interaction with other people.

Stanley Greenspan, M.D., a clinical professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at George Washington University School of Medicine and author of many influential parenting books, says playing games with parents helps children develop the social skills necessary for getting along with others and is core to their healthy development.

“When you play games with your children”, Greenspan says, “you’re not only connecting and engaging, you’re exchanging back- and-forth emotional signals, which are helping the child regulate mood and behavior, learning to read social signals and learning to communicate. Each of these abilities contributes to a child’s sense of security.”

Seize this opportunity to teach them your values, and indulge them with your own undivided attention. Try a math game with your kids. A price cannot be put on the quality of the time you will have spent with your children. They will have fun while learning, and they will remember those times with greater fondness than the times they spent playing the educational computer game.

And lastly but of great importance, among the obvious benefits of sitting down and playing a good game with your children is the opportunity that games provide to apply and solidify the mathematical reasoning and calculating skills your children are learning in school. When children play on-line or video games, parents may know how the child scores, but do they know where they made mistakes and why? Playing games with your child offers you, as a parent, a greater opportunity to know what your child’s strengths and weaknesses in mathematics are.

Parents and Math Games

Parents often ask for suggestions about activities to do with their children at home to help further their mathematical understanding. I’ve been teaching math to children for many years, and I’ve found that math games are, from a teacher’s and a parent’s point of view, wonderfully useful. Math games put children in exactly the right frame of mind for learning. Children are normally very eager to play games. They relax when they play, and they concentrate. They don’t mind repeating certain facts or procedures over and over.

Children throw themselves into playing games the way they never throw themselves into filling out workbook pages or dittos. And games can help children learn almost everything they need to master in elementary math. Good, child-centered games are designed to take the boredom and frustration out of the repetitive practice necessary for children to master important math skills and concepts.