YEAH!!!!
Math games are a staple in our house, and we have amassed quite a collection of fantastic games of all formats. We play every day, and it is awesome because it is Daddy's go-to area if the two of them are playing...he often wants to contribute to her EL experience, and this is a really great way to do it.
We also reserve 15-30 minutes 3/4 times per week after dinner/bath to play a quick game as a family.
Then, as I mentioned in the toddler math threads, we have Friday Family Night
lots and lots of games!
Okay, I am going to try to organize some of our favorites and past favorites in some sort of order, by level of difficulty/skill.
Since there are so many, I am going to probably have to post and edit as I am on the IPad and don't want to chance it being lost prior to posting!
don't you HATE that?!
Also, here is a fabulous site where I find many of our games. You can search by topic as well if you are trying to find a game to enrich a specific theme:
http://www.educationallearninggames.com/I also love games from
www.Foxmind.com and
www.Thinkfun.com1)I think the RS math games are a must! We do have the Mathgames book and the Activities for AL Abacus and they are both incredibly helpful...I actually credit much of our RS success to these books. We continue with the whole program to ensure no gaps, but EL kids WILL need supplementation with RS. However, the teaching fits exceptionally well into EL.
2) Chutes and Ladders: very basic, can start at pretty much any age. Practice both counting on and addition/subtraction based upon how you decide to word it. We started with counting on, then later played with an abacus to reinforce.
Oh! When Alex was teeny and didn't have the attention span to sit that long I made a home made version of Chutes and Ladders that only went up to 20. Highly recommend this for kids 12 months+
3) Hi-Ho Cherry-O: awesome game for learning math facts up to ten in addition/subtraction...a Bonus is that it only takes 5-10 minutes to play!
4) Go Fish! : so many math concepts here. Be sure to have your kiddo determine the winner by counting up Each player's number of pairs and comparing to see who has most/fewest, etc...
5) Sum Swamp: this is an all time favorite. Can't say enough about it! Addition/subtraction, even/odd, and more. Tip: we discovered it is quite easy to adapt to other arithmetic if you buy separate operation dice. Or simply make it a bit more difficult by using polyhedral dice
6) card game 7-ate-9: really fun, quick card game to practice adding +\- 1, 2, and 3 to sums.
7) Think Fun Math Dice: use all operations or limit to add/subtract.
War card games and all variations
9) S'Math: we honestly LOVE this game but it would be far superior if the tiles were not so fiddly!
10) Muggins Math: this is a fantastic game we just got after xmas that also uses all arithmetic. I can tell it is going to be an endless favorite!
11) Dino Math Tracks: this is a place value game that can be easily adapted to LO. We use this with the RS place value cards, but you could make your own.
12) Step Right Up Estimation: this one we just got, and have only played once...but Alex will now try to estimate all sorts of things, and it is lovely for discussion of concepts and comparisons.
13) Iguana Factor Multiplication: this is a lot of fun and concentrates on multiplication facts. It also has a bit of strategy. The one thing I would criticize about this game is that the spinner is not well-designed and seriously slows the game down...after a couple of tries we abandoned the spinner and simply used 10-sided dice. This works amazingly well and moves the game right along at a better rate
14)Presto-Chango Money, Rolling in the Money, and Money Bags: all fun money games, but Money Bags Coin Value Math is our favorite
We also have gotten quite into logic games:
Here are our two current faves...
Rush Hour, Jr.
Zoologic
We also make up a lot of games...we play math Bingo a lot and have a version for all arithmetic operations, time, money, fractions, and even temperature!
UNO cards are fantastic and can be used to make up any number of games.
Five of our more active math games are:
A 20-ft number line
A Trampoline
Number Bean bags (practice just about any math skill with these! I made four home-made operation beanbags to challenge her.)
RS-inspired Skittles: I posted a picture of these in the toddler math thread, but we play a lot of games with these as well.
And her favorite game when she was memorizing addition facts:
http://www.learningresources.com/product/math+mat+challenge-trade-+game.doSO glad others are enjoying the sixty-second sweep as well!
Hope it helps as my fingers are tired of this IPad!!!
Digg
