Educational Math Games
Using Kids Fun Math Activities to Help With Children's Math Skills
Oct 19, 2009
Many enjoyable kid's games can be used as educational math games. For basic children's math skills, nothing helps more than repetition. The more times a child encounters the same problem, the easier it becomes and elementary school math facts are slowly memorized. Forcing children to do endless worksheets can be demoralizing. However, shared time with parents playing kids fun math games can be productive as well as a time for bonding.
Introducing Children's Math Games
It's important to focus on the fun element of a new game and not to pose it as a “math game”. Many of the math learning games that are suggested in this article are games that can be easily found in toy stores, thrift shops or garage sales. Be patient with the child and focus on the game not the math skill. If the child needs help, ask questions but don't be afraid to occasionally just give the answer. The goal is to keep the child in the game.
Best Fun Math for Kids Games
The math learning games listed below will reinforce the most basic children's math skill – number recognition. Luckily, many of these games can be enjoyed by all ages. Try these games for kindergarten math activities. Initially for a young child, remove all the cards from the deck except for the ones, twos and threes. Each week, or as the child seems ready, add the next number.
- Uno – a simple card game by Mattel. Players try to get rid of all their cards by playing a card that matches the card played by the previous player by either color, number or type. Some strategy is involved and both adults and children enjoy this game.
- Go Fish – a favorite child's card game requiring only a standard deck of playing cards. Initially, start with only dealing three or four cards to each player to make the game simpler.
For recognizing the number of objects in a group, play simple dice games. For a very small child, the game can be building a block tower and a roll of the die decides how many blocks each player must add to the tower. Try to build the tower as high as possible without toppling it.
For sequencing, that is recognizing that two comes after one and four comes before five, try the following games.
- Skip-Bo – a fun card game by Mattel. Players take turns trying to use up their stockpile of cards by adding onto “building piles” of sequentially ordered cards. Wild cards are included and help keep the game from getting “stuck”. Older versions of this game used cards from 1 to 10, newer versions go up to 12.
- Spit – this is a fast playing card game that requires only a standard deck of playing cards. Once the child has mastered the game, the rules can be altered such that instead of going up or down by one number, players must go up or down by two. That is, on a card with the face value of four a player can play either a two or a six. Initially, take the royal cards out of the deck for this game.
Kids Fun Math Games for Reinforcing Adding and Subtracting Skills
- Monopoly Junior – for simple adding and subtracting of single digits. Monopoly Junior is an age 5-8 version of the older game. Based on an amusement park theme, children purchase ticket booths for water slides, magic shows, etc. and collect money when other players land on their amusements. The money included with the game includes bills from 1 to 5 and children will quickly learn basic math facts by paying for amusements and collecting money from other players. One game rule that is worth ignoring initially is that if a player owns two amusements of the same color, the cost for another player landing on such an amusement is twice the usual cost. Save this rule for when the child is ready for simple multiplication.
- Farkle – a game played with six dice. The goal is to roll ones, fives or three or more of a kind. The scoring system requires adding of three digit numbers. Generally the child will be focused on the game and will happily add up their score. By the end of several rounds of this game, the child will have done the equivalent of several multiple-digit addition worksheets without even being aware of it.
- Yahtzee and Yum – these two very similar games require rolling five dice and rerolling some or all of the dice up to two times in an attempt to obtain a high score in various categories (such as sequences of numbers, two or more of a kind of each number and high sums of all dice rolled). Addition is required for noting a player's score on each turn and for totaling scores at the end of the game.
Educational Math Games are Just Plain Fun
By keeping focused on the fun and not the math skills, these fun math games for kids can help children quickly learn most of the elementary school math requirements for the first few grades. Leave the games where they are in view and try to be available for a quick game when the child expresses an interest.
Related articles:
Homeschool Preschool: Creating a Love of Learning Through Fun Preschool Activities
Homeschool Kindergarten: Having Fun While Homeschooling Kindergarten Age Children
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