Most people don’t think of math as something that can be fun. I know many people dread doing math. But there are tons of ways to show students that math really can be fun and interesting, and playing math games is an awesome way to do that!
Here are some fun math games you can play with your students, and some they can play on their own, to make learning math a more exciting experience for both of you!
War (the card game)
You’ve probably played the card game War before, right? The gist of it is that you and a partner each have a stack of cards and you each turn one over at the same time. Whoever has the higher card wins that round and takes both cards. If there’s a tie, you turn over another card face down and then one more face up. Whoever gets the highest card that time gets to take ALL of the cards from that round. You play until one player has all of the cards.
To turn this into a math game, you can either create or buy cards that have different kinds of numbers on them. I use them in my homeschool math classes to teach comparing fractions, positive and negative numbers, and anything else you can think of where you’re comparing numbers to each other.
You can make your own War cards with note cards and write whatever you’d like on them. Or, if you’d prefer to buy ones that are already made, check out these Addition and Subtraction War Cards, and these Multiplication war cards.
Battleship
Battleship is another fun game that you probably played as a kid, that you can now play with YOUR kids to teach them how to graph points on the coordinate plane! Check out this game of Coordinate Plane Battleship that you can download for free on Teachers Pay Teachers, and have your student start practicing graphing points without even realizing they’re doing math!
The 24 Game
The 24 Game is one of my FAVORITE math games to play with my students! It practices addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division all together in a really fun game that you can play together as a family, or they can play on their own. Each card has 4 numbers on it and the goal is to figure out a way to make the number 24 using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and using all 4 numbers on the card once. And there is often more than one way to do it, so it can be fun to see who can find the most ways on one card. There are different levels of difficulty too, so you can start out easy and then move up in difficulty as they practice and get better.
Fraction Dominoes
Fractions is a topic that I have seen many students struggle with over my 10 years as a math teacher. I have found, however, that having visual representations of fractions helps students have a stronger understanding of what they are and how they relate to each other. This Fraction Dominoes game gives students visual representations of fractions, while practicing using them in a fun game to play with family and friends!
Multiplication and Division Games
For students learning their times tables, there are some fun games they can play with family and friends to practice and master their skills. Zoom is a fun card game that practice multiplication facts, and Multiplication and Division BINGO is a fun option to play with a group to practice both at the same time
Prodigy Math
Prodigy Math is a fun, interactive FREE online game that students in grades 1-8 can use to practice their math skills. Students explore the fantasy world in the game, and learn important math skills along the way! Check out Prodigy Math today!
I hope this list of options helps you and your student(s) have fun learning math at home together this year!
Do you have any fun math games that you like to play that you can share with us?