Math game ideas

Learn more: Little Bins for Little Hands. Draw a giant clock face with hours and minutes on the playground with sidewalk chalk.

Choose two students to be the hour and minute hands, then call out a time and send them out to become the clock. Add more complicated elements by having them add to or subtract from the initial time too. Learn more: Creative Family Fun. Have your students hop like frogs, leap like gazelles, or jump like a kangaroo. Learn more: Coffee Cups and Crayons. This teacher used masking tape; you could also do sidewalk chalk on the playground. Two players face off, one on each side of the board.

Show the flashcard, and kids race to be the first to jump to the correct square with both feet inside the lines. Get all the rules at the link below. Learn more: Teaching and Tapas. Tape a series of flashcards to the floor and challenge kids to see who can correctly make their way from start to finish the fastest.

They can call out the answers or write them down, but they have to get it right before they move on. Kids can race side by side or work independently to beat their own best time. Beach balls are so much fun in the classroom. Scribble numbers all over one with a Sharpie, then toss it to a student.

Wherever their thumbs land, they add or subtract, or multiply those two numbers together before tossing the ball to the next student. Make a number mat for each student like the ones shown. Flash an equation with an answer between 10 and 99 on the screen.

Kids figure out the answer and jump to put their left foot on the correct tens place, right foot on the ones. Learn more: Number Loving. Teach kids about transversals and the angles they create with some fun dance moves! Learn more: Communicating Mathematically. Label yours with math problems and answers, then have kids build pyramids and towers galore! Learn more: The Kindergarten Smorgasboard. Kids will be amazed to learn they can measure the tallest tree while keeping their feet on the ground.

The link below walks you through the steps with a free printable. It is such a simple game that you can make up your own way to use it and play it. The brightly colored cards have questions and the answers are printed on the game board. Place a tile on the answer. With five in a row, you have a Sequence! This bingo-like game is great for ages seven and older. This game makes making change so much fun! Earn money while completing chores, like setting the table or for selling lemonade.

The spinner makes exceptions such as, no nickels to make sure kids make use of the higher value coins. Better be hungry for pizza as you play seven games in one! Identifying, adding and subtracting and matching equivalents help make making pizzas and working with fractions fun.

The double sided spinners allow the difficulty level to be easily adjusted. The games can be also be complemented with real pizza: Recommended! Dinosaurs rule with place value. Roll the dice to make four digit numbers. Get your dinos to their base before other players do. Set tiles up crossword style to add up to multiples of the number on a die. Grab these 10 free printable puzzles at the link. Learn more: Helping With Math. Grab a stack of old magazines and use it for a place value scavenger hunt!

You can do this one at school or send it home for homework. Get free printables to use for this first grade math game at the link.

Learn more: Primary Theme Park. As first graders work with the concepts of tens and ones, play this simple game to give them confidence. Then they call out the number on the bottom, and the player who has that number takes over. Learn more: Playdough to Plato.

Use pattern blocks with the free printable cards at the link to get kids playing around with simple geometry. Every thing is more fun with LEGOs! Pull out a pile of square bricks and use them for these fun and free activities that incorporate estimating, measuring, and comparing length.

For instance, if a player rolls 11, they may close 1, 2, 3, and 5, as these add up to You can play this game with a specially designed box , as it has been played for years. Mastering the concepts of tens and ones is more fun with hands-on activities. We love these DIY math manipulatives that use inexpensive nuts and bolts from the hardware store to drive home the idea of place value.

Bonus: Kids also practice fine motor skills! Get free printable mats to use with this activity at the link. Learn more: The Measured Mom. First graders work on sorting by attribute in as many as three categories. Throw out a variety of building blocks, beads, or other classroom toys and lay out some Hula-Hoops.

Ask kids to define the categories and start sorting! You can even overlap the hoops into Venn diagrams for items that meet more than one criteria. Learn more: BSM Year 2. You can use any type of building blocks for this one. Get free printables at the link. Kids love to be creative and their creativity can be used in middle school math projects. The design a dream house project involves each student creating a 2D version of the front of a house. This house must include four windows and two doors.

All of the lines on the house must be drawn with a ruler. Next, the students must determine the area and perimeter of each window, door, and the front of the house. They can then convert these measurements for additional mathematic practice. Probability games are popular as students are able to guess the outcomes. The game of pig is one of the more well-known probability games that involve the rolling of dice. The student can roll the dice as many times as they want, keeping tract of the total of the sums on each dice.

There are plenty of fun and educational games that can be used with fractions. The card game of war is a popular one that many children already know how to play. Instead of using regular playing cards, the students can use cards with fractions on them.