Kiddo likes to make up his own math activities and math games at home and after school. Sometimes he corrals me into joining him. Other times he likes to play by himself. I’ve taken note of the tools he uses repeatedly for his DIY math games and thought I’d share them with you.
I hope these materials inspire your kids to develop their own fun math games! {I’ve included affiliate links below.}
Pen and large pad of paper. Of course! You need this to keep score, draw puzzles, make board games, etc.
Math Dice. You can use regular dice, of course, but a 12 sided die adds a little more interest. Lately I’ve been contemplating getting him these math operation dice.
Poker Chips. Ever since I got him some poker chips he had been using them for all sorts of counting games. I have a great one to share with you in an upcoming post. A sizable amount of differently colored buttons would work nicely, too.
Montessori Large Wooden Number Cards. We’ve had these for a few years and they’ve gotten a lot of use.
Hundreds Board. You could easily make your own version. Buggy and Buddy has a free hundreds board printable for you.
Graph Paper. Kiddo likes to use this to draw shapes and keep score by making bar graphs.
Montessori Golden Beads. I love all the Montessori math materials, though I confess we do not use them in a strict Montessori-approved way. We have some Golden Ten Bars, Golden Bead Thousand Cube and some Golden Bead Hundred Squares. We also have a colored beads teens set. Living Montessori Now has a great post on how to make your own bead bars.
Dominoes. You probably have a set of these. Don’t limit yourself to playing by the rules. Kiddo likes to use them for addition activities.
Deck of Cards. This comes in very handy for games like Make Ten.
An Assortment of Coins. Who doesn’t like to play with money? Little kids can perform simple money sorting tasks, but they also make handy tokens.
Games for Math book. Kiddo likes to mine this book for ideas but he uses it for inspiration, too. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to return it to the library!
Of course there are many tools for math games, but these are the ones we have and use often. What do your kids use for math games?
MamaTea says
We use lots of different kinds of dice, a deck of cards, a hundred board…and my oldest LOVES the game S'math. 🙂
MaryAnne says
My kids are JUST starting to get into mathematical games – so I'll be coming back to this post!!!
Raising a Happy Child says
A lot of good ideas here. Our main materials are 12 and 20 dice, various manipulatives and paper. I need to get this book.