Early Elementary Math Games

What’s the best way to teach young children math? With games, of course! Playing games with math helps children make the connection between the curriculum and the real-world. These are some of our favorites.

Sum Swamp

This game is perfect for Kindergarten age or anyone who’s ready to learn number sense. I used this game with my son and he soon learned to add and subtract up to six. It’s also great for teaching even and odd numbers.

Allowance

Allowance is one of the kid’s favorite math games. Learning how to handle money and make change is a valuable skill to develop. The game plays a little like Monopoly, but not nearly as long and a lot of fun for elementary age. As a bonus, they also get to see the value in learning to save your money!

Dino Math Tracks

Dino Math Tracks is the other math game that ties for favorite in our household. In this game, the kids learn about place value and adding larger numbers into the thousands. The problem cards make this game more difficult if you have older elementary age children.

Math War

We played math war nearly every day in first grade. It was a great way for my son to learn his math facts with every increasing speed and have fun in a game with mom at the same time.

Here are some games you can do at home!

COIN TOSS

Adding money
It’s so simple, but addictive! You can use real money or plastic coins for this game. (The plastic coins are not as loud.) Line up a few buckets, grab a handful of coins, and toss them into one bucket at a time. Once all three have a few coins inside, add up their value to see which bucket won. You can also make this multiplayer.

MARBLE ROLL

Adding sums
Make a ramp out of cardboard, mats, books, or anything else you can think of. Set up a few buckets on the other side in a few strategic places and assign a numerical value to each. Roll several marbles up the ramp trying to aim for the buckets with the highest value. Add up your points to find your score. You can make this game easy by using multiples of 5 or more difficult by assigning other values 12, 6, 3, to the buckets.

SPINNING DEGREES

Degrees of a circle
To help young children understand degrees of a circle, put post-it notes on the floor with degrees written on them at every right angle. So they would be labeled 0, 90, 180, and 270. While starting at 0, spin clock-wise and wherever you stop is how many degrees you went around the circle. It helps to wear socks! You can also teach directions: turn 90 degrees right, turn 180 degrees to the left.

Do you have a favorite math game?

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