Friday, October 5, 2012

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.

2 comments:

dstb said...

What a great reminder!

Set is very popular here. Another game we have is called Krypto:Family Arithmetic Game. I see they now have fraction cards available. Both sets are available on amazon.

I see Krypto is made by MPHGames (right here in CT!). It looks like they may have an on-line version available. Haven't tried it yet.


Sarah

Heather said...

Thanks for the suggestion Sarah!

Heather