Math Games for Kids

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Children often learn math best with concrete, real-life, physical examples that they can feel, touch, move and manipulate. Educational suppliers have long known this, and sell many different kids of math manipulatives. Many of these you can make easily and inexpensively yourself.

Around the House	Sorting Laundry	Cooking and Baking	Craft Stick Regrouping	Jack's Beans	Candy and Pasta Math	Mathematical Card Games	Wizard Math Tricks
Make your Own Manipulatives	Make a Base 10 Set	Pentominoes	Tangrams	Math Games to Make	Mancala	Battleship Coordinates	Mobius Strips and Klein Bottles

Math in Everyday Life

Laundry: Yes, laundry can be a math activity. Before washing, practice sorting clothing by colour, fabric etc. After washing, sort laundry by owner and type. How many socks are there? Practice counting by 2's. Who has the most blue items? Who has the least?

Cooking and baking: These are great for working on measurement (volume, temperature and time), ratios (try doubling or halving a recipe, etc.), division (serving portions) and also doing a little kitchen chemistry: What ingredients make things rise? What adds moisture? Allow for some experimentation when possible. Check out the edible science page and kid-friendly recipes for more inspiration.

Craft sticks (popsicle sticks): Use these to make homemade cuisinaire rods by painting and cutting to appropriate lengths; also use them to show regrouping by bundling up groups of 10 and fastening together with an elastic band (for base 10--you can do this with other bases too), make "superbundles" of 100 by bundling 10 bundles together in a similar way. Subtract by undoing bundles as needed.

Jack's Beans: Use large dried beans for this project. Spray paint one side only of your beans. Now you are ready to explore probability and number sentences. Choose a number to work with, say 5. Toss out 5 beans and count those with white and those with coloured sides. Make a number sentence with them, say, 4 + 1 = 5. Or, simply count the coloured sides and throw multiple times. Record the results of each throw, then plot the results on a graph.

Candy Math (or Pasta Math): For this activity you will need either candy or pasta with different attibutes, such as colour, shape, type, flavour, etc. Fruit gummies work well because you can get them in various shapes and themes, ie. dinosaur shapes mixed with animal shapes can be sorted by extinct and living, by individual species and by colour. Halloween candy also lends itself well to this activity. If you choose to use pasta, look for a variety of shapes, sizes and colours in your selection. Pasta can be grouped by size, colour, shape and whether it can be threaded onto a string or not. If you don't have a great variety on hand, try buying in bulk so you can pick and choose how much and what types you would like to use.
You may wish to start with addition, adding and counting out the items. Division can come next (sharing the candy evenly between friends, stuffed animals, etc.) and multiplication by reversing the activity. You can sort by the various attributes, make venn diagrams using needlework hoops, hula hoops, or lengths of string tied into circles. How many of the red ones are also dinosaurs? How many of the shells are orange? Try graphing by attributes as well--you can draw a graph or use the actual materials to form a graph on your work surface. Subtraction comes last, and if you are using candy you will subtract by eating them of course!

Playing Cards: These are great for matching, addition and subtraction games and studying probability. You can use games you know, search online for new games, or try one of these:

Addition game: Pick a number, say, 13, before starting the game. Each player is dealt 7 cards. Players may put down sets of cards that add up to the chosen number. Face cards count as 10, aces are high or low, etc. The goal is to be the person with the most sets of the given number. To take turns, players may either select a card from the deck or ask another player if they have a certain card. If the player asked has the card, they must hand it over.

Multiplication and division game: Deal each player 5 cards. Turn over the top card: this card will be the X card. Player 1 puts down a card. The card value is multiplied by the face card and the total is recorded. If the X card is a 3, and player 1 plays an 8 this will give a score of 24. If a player is caught making a multiplication or addition error, they must divide their score by the last card they played. Player 2 takes a turn in a similar way, until one of the players reaches a score of 500.

Variation: assign one colour of cards to be a negative integer, ie. in our example, if red cards are negative, and a 2 of hearts is played, the score for that turn will be -6.

Manipulatives to Create Yourself

flat box pattern for base 10 hundred cube Base 10 Set: Use construction paper, tag board, bristol board etc. to make a base 10 set. For single units, cut out 1 cm square pieces. For 10's, cut out strips 1 cm x 10 cm. For 100's, cut out a 10 cm x 10 cm square. For a 1000 cube, make a cubes that is 10 cm x 10 cm x 10 cm. It's even better if the learner builds the set to practice measuring. To make a cube, trace a column of four 100 squares. Add another square on the top left side and another on the bottom right side. Add a 1 cm gluing flap along the outside edges. Cut out and carefully fold along the lines you have drawn. Glue together using the flaps.
Base 10 sets are great for measurement, base 10 activities, and showing exponential growth.

Pentominoes: These are arrangements of 5 square units joined along the sides to make various shapes. These shapes include: 5 in a row, which looks like a lower case l, 4 in a row with one at the side at the bottom, 4 in a row with one at the side one up from the bottom (and also flips of both of those), 3 in a row with one to the side at the top and one at the other side to the bottom (an "s" or a backward "s"), a "u" which is an "s" with both on one side, a "T" and a "t", and a double row of two plus one to the side. See how many ways you can make a square of various sizes with the shapes. Try making different pictures. Invent challenges using a fixed size, shape and/or number of pieces. This is similar to the game "blockus".
To make your own set, trace out the pieces (1 cm squares work well) and cut them out from construction paper, bristol board etc. Keep the pieces together in an envelope or sealable freezer bag when not in use.

Tangrams are a series of shapes that are cut from a square in a specific way. The first challenge is to try and reassemble the shapes into a square. Can you make a rectangle? How many different animal shapes can you make?
You can buy tangrams commercially or copy the pattern on paper and make your own.

tangram folding pattern #1 tangram folding pattern #2 tangram folding pattern #3 tangram folding pattern #4 tangram folding pattern #5 tangram folding pattern #6

To fold your own, start with a square. Fold in half, corner to corner and cut or tear along the folded edge.
Follow the folding images above, folding and cutting or tearing along the dotted line in each.
You will end up with two large triangles, one medium triangle and two small triangles; a square and a parallelogram.
You can also print the blackline image at the top and simply cut out the shape.

The following site has some interesting history and challenges regarding the tangram. You will need to scroll down a bit to get to the good stuff! Click here for the Absolute Astronomy Tangram Page Also, here (on page 6) you can find the legend of the tangram.

Homemade Strategy Games

Mancala Game: For this you will need a clean egg carton (use a plastic or styrofoam one that can be throughtly washed out) or an ice cube tray that holds 12 ice cubes. This will form your playing board. You will also need an assortment of marbles or pebbles as game pieces, and a small box or container for either end of the carton/tray that will serve as your pits.
To play: 3 stones (or whatever you are using) are placed in each section of your board but the pits are kept empty. One player picks up all of the stones in any one of the holes on his side. Moving counter-clockwise, the player deposits one of the stones in each hole until the stones run out. If the player reaches his or her own pit, her or she deposits one piece in it. The opponent's pit is skipped. If the last stone a player drops is in their own pit, they get a free turn. If the last stone a player drops is in an empty hole on their side, they capture that stone and any stones in the hole directly opposite. Moves after the first one continue in the same way, with the player removing the stones from any hole and distributing one to each hole in a counter-clockwise direction. The game ends when all six spaces on one side of the Mancala board are empty. The player who still has stones on his or her side of the board when the game ends captures all of those stones. The player with the most stones in his or her pit is the winner of the game.

Battleship Game: Create your own Battleship-style game by using graph paper and construction paper. Decide on the size of your grid then draw 4 squares, 2 for each player. Label the vertical axis alphabetically and the horizontal axis numerically, and repeat on all 4 grids. Decide on the number and size of the ships you will use, then cut out the ships for each player from construction paper. Place your ships (hidden from the other player) on one of the grids. Use a pencil to trace around them in case they slip out of place.
Player 1 chooses a set of coordinates, say, "E5". Player 2 chacks to see if any of his or her ships occupy that space, and reports either "hit" or "Miss". Use a pencil to mark the hits and misses. Player 2 then takes a turn. Once all the coordinates that a ship occupies have been "hit", the ship is sunk, and the owner must report that to theother player. The object of the game is to sink the other players ships before they sink yours.
Of course, you can always play this with a more peaceful theme--use your imagination!
If you find you play often, you may wish to laminate the grids and use dry-erase markers or wipe-off crayons to mark the ships and hit/miss information.

Dots Game: All you need to play this 2-player game is a sheet of paper and pencil. Decide on the size of your grid and draw dots in vertical rows that also line up horizontally (if you use graph paper for this, the dots would be at the intersecting corners). The first player connects two adjacent dots with either a vertical or horizontal line. The second player connects two other dots in a similar way. The players take turns doing this until a box is formed. The player who closes a square (by adding the line that completes the 4th side) puts their initial in the box and gains a point. The play continues until all of the dots have been joined to make boxes. The winner is the person with the most initialled boxes.
Alternative: Decide ahead that the winner will be the person with the least completed boxes.
Variation: Offset alternate rows of dots and play "triangles" instead--same rules, except instead of forming boxes, you form triangles to score points.

Math Links:

Spatial Mathematics:

Mobius Strips and other Dimensional Wonders: the Mathematics of Topology

Mobius Bagels and Other Topological Challenges

Mandelbrot Sets in 3-D: Math and Art Meet in Chaos

Origami, Architecture and Topolgy Photography

Penrose Tiles

Geometrical Experiments in Art

Explorations:

Scratch: MIT's kid's programming language (free download)

Magic Squares, Fibonacci Series and other Fun Numbers to Explore

Excellent Infographic All About Pi

How Archimedes Approximated Pi

All About Quantum Mathematics

More Math and Strategy Games

Instructional, Applied Mathematics, Math Contests, Tools

Khan Academy: Online Instructional Math Videos

Easy Explanations for Advanced Math and Computing

Jim's Algebra Hints

Solving Equations as Proofs

The Best Way to Factor Trinomials

Engineering Megasite of Applied Math and Science Activities and Resources for Grades K-12

CEMC: Home of the UW Mathematics Competitions (loads of math resources)

Canadian Math Contests

Wolfram Alpha Computational Search Engine

All About Sliderules and How to Use One

Math Books:

Big Ideas for Small Mathematicians &
Big Ideas for Growing Mathematicians Ann Kajander
Math for Smarty Pants Marilyn Burns
Math Games for Middle School Mario George Salvadori
Mathematics Made Simple, 6th Ed. Thomas Cusick
Chaos James Gleick
Microcosms Brandon Broll (Microscopic images up to 20 million x magnification--I added this because it shows patterns, scale, Fibonacci in nature, etc.)