If you want to play more math games with your students, you might be asking yourself what kind of math games you should be playing. Choosing the best math games for your situation is the critical component to success. And as an added bonus, the bottom of this post has a send-home page you can use to garner parent engagement!
For the most part, during this post, I am talking about a plethora of fun and different games that were invented just to teach math. You’re familiar with these as a teacher. You find them in books at teacher stores, online, at trainings, etc… The use of commercial board games will be addressed more toward the end of the blog post.
There are three VERY BASIC criteria which should be used to determine the best math games to play in your class. Which math game to play should be determined by:
1- What skills you want to practice
2- The level of skill usage required
3- How much time you have to play it
Let’s look closer.
What kinds of skills do you want to practice?
It does you no good to let kids play Monopoly and practice adding and subtracting somewhat larger round numbers and resource management if what you’re trying to increase is achievement in division. It might sound obvious, but you’d be surprised how many teachers I’ve talked to who “let their kids play a lot of math games” but don’t see improvement. You can’t just collect games. Focus down to the skill it teaches.
Like laser focus. There are a lot of great games out there for every little thing. If you’re teaching comparing fractions that all have a one as a numerator, there’s probably a game for that. And it would be a better choice than a game that has all kinds of fractions to compare.
What level game do you need?
It goes without saying that fifth graders don’t need to practice matching games like Go Fish. It’s fun, but probably mathematically below every student you have. Choose the games that gives the right amount of support and challenge for your students. This can be different from class to class, even when teaching the same skill to the same grade.
Also, look at differentiating games. I like to use or create mini board games and independent game type pages (such as mystery pictures) to practice skills and make them differentiated. That way I can create groups that look like they’re all playing the same game, but it’s at their level. Moving Remainders is one example of this. I can give students dice with varying numbers of sides to make it a remediation level or a challenge level.
Differentiating games is important because it provides just the right level of challenge. Students need to all be challenged and we, too often, are required to teach more to the middle. Most games are fairly easy to differentiate just by changing the numbers involved.
Time Allotment
Don’t start a game like Monopoly when you only have 10 minutes to play!
I know you know that, but a common mistake I see is teacher’s forgetting to add in the prep and clean up part of the game play. It may only take 10 minutes to play Street Alley’s and Integers (great game for adding positive and negative integers), but it adds AT LEAST five minutes when you pass out and collect game boards.
Also, allow a little extra time when it’s their first time playing. It always takes a bit longer on the first pass. Rules will come up more during conversation and the routine hasn’t been established yet. Kids get faster at playing the more they do it.
And don’t forget to consider the time it takes to explain rules (if it’s the first exposure), pass out supplies/pieces, etc…and get set up. And don’t forget clean up time as well! I’ll be addressing rules, time allotment, introduction of games, etc… in a future post about how to use math games effectively. Look for it soon!
Board Games for Math Skills
I consider board games to be valuable, but in a little bit different of a category than ‘teacher games’. Board games usually are a little less laser focused on single skills and have more pieces to keep track of. They also tend to take up more storage space in the cabinets. But they can definitely be valuable. You would use the same three criteria listed above for selecting the best board games for practicing math skills. There are a lot of great board games for language arts out there too!
I created this printable to send home and thought I’d share it with you. I used to go over it with parents on a Back To School Night as part of the parent resource/how-you-can help-at-home type packet. I got some good responses from parents and you can photocopy and send it home as well. Just don’t sell it and leave my copyright visible.
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