Math Play

Have you played with math lately? I like to play math with my kids at least once a week! Sometimes it’s a commercial game and other times it’s one that I’ve made up- I just knew I could find all kinds of math play using number chips.

I’ve posted on math games before…makes me think it would make a great math page to link to. But, I thought about now some of you might be looking to for a little math boost. Listed below are some of our favorites: (This is not an exhaustive list, if I find more I will add to the pile!)

• Set– what a great way to practice visual discrimination. In searching for a link, I came across this daily online Set Puzzle. How cool is that?
• Equate– pictured above it’s a math Scrabble game, but way harder than Smath. This is a great game when you combine getting the highest score
• Sumuko– super game to practice multiples
• Labyrinth– this one requires thinking ahead and planning and seeing moves a few out which I’m terrible at!
• Yahtzee– this one requires math to score and see who wins! It’s also a fun way to practice patterns and identifying sets
• Math Dice– mental math fun and there are two versions. Check out the Math Dice Junior as well.
• Zingo– for the younger set
• Corners– fun little card game from the RightStart card games

Last spring I taught a math co-op class and it was fun to play math games each week. One thing I found is that although the “math wise” kids knew a lot of math facts fast, they had trouble with strategy. We worked on that throughout the semester.

I know many of us are tempted to think of games as the icing on the cake with not a lot of substance compared to solving problems and finishing those math book pages, but I encourage you to think of math games as more nutritious and to make sure your children get more servings! Math games help kids to solve problems in a unique way and help to develop a more creative approach to problem solving.