Best Math Games?

[littleWMN]

My daughter has (undiagnosed, but suggested by a tutor and I think she's right) dyscalculia. She's 10 and really struggling with multiple steps problems but also has low processing speed and inattentive ADHD.

 

Her tutor has suggested drilling her constantly, daily, in order to get her to know her "math language". Well, this does not work on her, it only makes her shut down and zone out.

 

She does, however, love to play games with me. We recently bought Zeus on the Loose and she LOVES it! I know most games involve math, but are there any other great ones you'd suggest?

 

I'd rather spend the money on games than on a tutor (since that got us zero improvement).

 

Also.... she's "behind" in math, so I hate to consider this... but do you think we could drop formal math for a few weeks and just play several games a day? Her confidence in math has dropped so much that it's affecting how she sees herself as a person. Interested in *any* advice you can give me.

 

And curriculum suggestions... I really don't think this is a curriculum issue so I'd like to not make this thread about that. Thanks!

[onaclairadeluna]

http://www.24game.com/

[Calendula]

I really like the books Family Math & Games for Math. For us, doing a variety of games works best. You might consider a living math approach.Stuart Murphy has a whole series of fun math books (fairly young - not sure what math level she is at). Beowulf by Fantasy Flight Games, is apparently a good math game (says my husband; however, there are two different Beowulf games by that co, and I'm not sure which one it is).

 

I totally agree with your approach to work on making math fun, before working on memorizing facts and learning new processes.

[Calendula]

Beowulf: The Legend is the math one. Apparently the creator, Reiner Knizia, incorporates math into many (all?) of his games -might be a place to start!

 

___________________________________________________________-

Ok, actually, we have Beowulf: The Movie - maybe they are both math games?

Edited August 26, 2011 by Calendula
Wrong game.

[littleWMN]

THANK YOU!! :auto:

[ChrisB]

I would do a search for posts by Siloam (her username). I believe Heather has at least one child with dyscalculia. Her posts are very informative especially regarding math.

 

Maybe RightStart card games would help reinforce her math.

[homemama]

Your daughter sounds alot like my ds. I do try to use as many games as I can. The book Games for Math (someone previously mentioned) by Peggy Kaye is a good one. I like to use Math U See's website for their free drill page. MUS page is not a game, but I like the way they do their drill page (not overwhelming). Also, if you need multiplication practice, ds loves multiplication.com

 

You might also check a teacher supply store (or online). I know there are some folder type games out there and sometimes you can get several in one book. If I think of others, I'll let ya know!;)

 

homemama

[specialmama]

We love Boxcars & One Eyed Jacks, and Roll 'n Multiply. The former offers many different books with hundreds of games to play, which includes game pieces and different kinds of die. The latter is a great game that is well made and so fun to play.

[veggiegal]

We play a lot of math games here. There's tons available as iPad apps as well if you have access to one.

 

Sum Swamp, Contig Jr. (google it), Mythmatical Battles, cribbage (yes, the good old card game), addition war, multiplication war, Pyramath, Yahtzee and Yamslam have all been enjoyed here. Your daughter might also like various games from Lynette Long, who has several excellent math titles which include tons of easy-to-implement games--very much along the line of Peggy Kaye, whose books I also use, but Long has more for older children, and covering a wider variety of math concepts. Two in particular that my boys enjoyed were an addition game from her Dealing With Addition book, which I wrote about here:

 

http://educatingrisa.com/2011/01/21/dealing-with-addition-math-game-part-2/

 

and Fingers!, which Long presents as a multiplication game, but it works well for addition or subtraction as well:

 

http://educatingrisa.com/2011/02/15/fingers-a-math-game/

 

Long has books on more advanced math concepts as well (titles like Groovy Geometry, Delightful Decimals, and Fabulous Fractions), all of which I have borrowed from the library and liked, but we haven't tried them yet as we're not quite at those concepts in our math studies as yet. HTH.

[Calendula]

I listed the wrong game above - we have Beowulf: The Movie. (The other Beowulf game must be math-related as well, but I haven't played that one.)

[littleWMN]

Thank you!

[Lori D.]

The Peggy Kaye book "Games for Math" is GREAT! VERY helpful! I would suggest starting there. The Family Math book would also be a good way of making math part of your everyday life -- which really IS the way we use math -- and would not seem so much like drill or school.

 

And yes, you can just play games and still learn for math -- we did math games and activities every Friday rather than the "spine" math; we even made up a few games of our own! For our "Fun Fridays", we also enjoyed skip count tapes, the Schoolhouse Rock: Multiplication Rock video, and math software (I highly recommend Millie's Math House and Reader Rabbit Math. Also: Trudy's Time and Place House; Mighty Math series; Math Blaster series; and for math facts: Number Munchers and Schoolhouse Rock: Math.) Other math related videos: for very early math exposure: Richard Scarry's Best Counting Video Ever and Leapfrog: Math Circus. For later elementary grades: Schoolhouse Rock: Math; Square One (old PBS series); or Questar's "Getting Ahead" series: Math.

 

We also used a LOT of manipulatives and matching booklets. There are even more available now:

- 1-100 Activity Book

- Hands On Math book series

- Math Discoveries book series

- Apple Fractions book

- Thinking Kids Math book series

- Sir Cumference book series

- attribute blocks and booklet

- geoboard and booklets

- pattern blocks and various booklets

- tangrams and booklets; "tangoes"

- hundred number chart and booklet

- clock and a time-telling activity guide/book

- Mathlink cubes and booklets

- bucket balance and activity guide

- cusienaire rods and booklets

- dice and activity booklet

- dominoes and activity booklet

- funtastic frogs and booklets

 

 

Just a suggestion: you might want to look at Miquon math, at least as a supplement.

 

Miquon is a discovery type of math, is very gentle, uses a manipulative (cusienaire rods), and you can use it either "chronological" or by subject -- there are 6 workbooks, each covering math topics at increasingly advanced level, so if you really get "into" addition, you can go through the addition section of the Orange workbook, then go straight to the addition section of the Red workbook, etc., until your student "hits a wall"; then you can go back to the next math topic in the Orange workbook and continue. OR, you can just move all the way through the Orange workbook, then "spiral" back to those topics again at a slightly more advanced level and go through the Red workbook; etc. OR, you can just go to different math topics in Miquon as supplement or "seeing math from a different point of view".

 

BEST of luck in finding the combination of things that work for your DD! Just to encourage you -- our DS just did NOT click much with math until about age 10. It was a combination of the math portions of his brain finally maturing so it COULD click, and finding the math program that worked for HIM (in his case, Math-U-See). Hang in there! Warmest regards, Lori D.

 

 

 

MATH GAMES

Most are board games; some are card games that come as a specialized deck. Card games played with a regular deck of cards marked with *.

 

 

COMPARING NUMBERS

- War* (see rules at: http://www.pagat.com/war/war.html)

- Concentration* = see rules at: http://www.pagat.com/misc/pelmanism.html

(make own deck from index cards = 1 math fact per card / match with 1 answer per card)

 

COUNTING

- Sorry

- Chips (counting / adding)

 

SEQUENCES

- Racko; Uno

- Crazy Eights* = see rules at: http://www.pagat.com/eights/crazy8s.html

 

PLACE VALUE

- Dino Math Tracks

 

ADDING

- Yatzhee

- Triple Yatzhee

- Sequence Dice

- Muggins: Knock-Out

- Mille Bourne

- Fill or Bust

- Snap It Up: Adding

 

ADD / SUBTRACT

- Free Parking

- Advance to Boardwalk

- 1-2-3-Oy!

- Snap It Up: Adding & Subtracting

- "98"* or "99"* or "100"* = see rules at: http://www.pagat.com/adders/98.html

 

MONEY / MAKING CHANGE

- Monopoly

- Pay Day

- Go For Broke

- Life

- Careers

- Presto-Chango

- Snap It Up: Money

 

STRATEGY with ADDING

- Shut the Box

- Dominoes

- Rummikub

- Backgammon

- Cribbage

- "Pig"* = see rules at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig_(dice)

 

MULTIPLICATION

- Roll N Multiply

- Snap It Up: Multiplying

 

ALL 4 MATH OPERATIONS

- Equate (like Scrabble with numbers, use all 4 math operations to score highest)

- Muggins Math Game (use all 4 math operations to equal a target number)

- Equalz (use all 4 math operations to equal a target number)

 

COMPUTER MATH FACT DRILL

(which for some kids can be like a game)

- Quarter Mile Math

- Math Blasters

- Number Munchers

 

HAND HELD ELECTRONIC MATH FACT DRILL

(which for some kids can be like a game)

- Flashmaster

- Math Shark

- Turbo Twist

- Leappad or Geosafari

 

 

Educational Learning Games is a website which sells lots of educational board and card cames; they have a lot of math-oriented games. See them at:

http://www.educationallearninggames.com/math-games.asp

Edited August 27, 2011 by Lori D.

[Farrar]

In addition (addition, ha!) to some of the ones listed here, we like Sleeping Queens, Frog Juice, and Rat-a-Tat-Cat. Rat-a-Tat-Cat is pretty much all just simple addition but it's fun enough to play over and over. Also, we like games like Sequence, Set, and Mastermind which encourage logical thinking.

[onaclairadeluna]

Rat a Tat Cat is a great game. You can play it with a regular deck of playing cards. Kings are draw two. Queens are peeks. And Jacks are trades.

 

Here are the rules.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat-a-Tat_Cat

[oraetstudia]

One of my daughters, who seems to have a lot of math troubles, if not necessarily dyscalculia (although I haven't ruled that out yet) has done quite well with Teaching Textbooks. I tried MUS with her and it didn't work, although it is often recommended. She's actually starting to grasp things with TT and since people say it is behind other curricula, the number on it makes her feel not so far behind, which is nice. I also have used a lot of books like Times Tales and Addition the Fun Way to help her learn math facts.

 

Her favorite math game at the moment is Timez Attack.

[ClassicMom]

We have enjoyed Math Dice and Math Dice Jr. at our house.

[SnMomof7]

If you are looking for fun drill for the four operations with AWESOME tracking, Math Rider is amazing.

 

You can get a 7-day free trial here - http://mathrider.com/partner/idevaffiliate.php?id=291_2

 

I was ready to bang my head against the wall before this.

[Spy Car]

The Right Start Math Game set has numerous card games for every topic. It is very comprehensive. Some may seem more like "math games" than games, but I have found them very effective.

 

Bill

[littleWMN]

I just wanted to thank you all. I've used some ideas/bought some games from this thread. My daughter is LOVING the mathrider.com trial. Thanks to all of you for the encouragement!!

[SnMomof7]

Glad she's liking Math Rider. Our oldest (8) has gone from a 52% mastery of her 1-12 addition facts to an 82% over the last couple of months :)!

[Guest funiku]

I'd recommend http://www.kids4coolmathgames.com

 

[OneStepAtATime]

My daughter is almost certainly dyscalculic.  She struggled with math all the way through 6th grade.  Finally, some wonderful women on the Learning Challenges board told me I should work on subitization skills with her and recommended using the Ronit Bird books.  I bought the books and also signed my daughter up for a British math program called Dynamo Math.  The British are quite a bit ahead of the Americans in research on math difficulties.  In just a couple of weeks my daughter was finally seeing the patterns of math in ways she never could before.  

 

Last night she asked me if she could do additional math sheets today.  She actually is enjoying math.  

 

The Ronit Bird books pair really well with Dynamo Math, but you could probably do just one or the other.  I usually do the exercises in the Ronit Bird books, then do the teacher/student exercises from the Dynamo Math curriculum then the kids log on to the Dynamo Math website to do the on-line activities (which they usually enjoy), then they do the worksheet that you print out from the Dynamo Math site.  You can regenerate new worksheets for the same topic as many times as you need.  The lessons are short, so even though this seems kind of long, it really isn't.  I print out everything I need for the week so there isn't much set up required.

[scrapbabe]

Number Ninjas

[BatmansWife]

This is an old thread....but in case anyone else is still interested in math games, Math Noodlers is great fun.  I also really like Giggle Facts, which is for kids working on addition and subtraction. 

[BatmansWife]

I'd recommend http://www.kids4coolmathgames.com

 

Are you for real??  Possibly this is spam since you are the one to resurrect this old thread and this is your only post. 

 

I went to this site since you recommended it.  It's horrible!  I tried 4 games, and not one of them has anything to do with math.  Why is this called Cool Math Games 4 Kids??  There are commercials before the games......like a kid wants to see that.  There is this pop up type vertical banner for facebook and twitter that I can not x out of and it covers up part of the games.  Worst of all....there are awful ads for some game called Tyron or something.  The ad says to make your own hero, and the woman shown might as well not even be wearing any shirts at all....there is very little left to the imagination.  I saw at least 3 different ads for this game in the few minutes I was at the site, some worse than others...apparently there are rotating ads at this site, so you may not see them right away.  But, goodness....they are just AWFUL!!  I was sitting here with my 10 year old daughter hoping to find some fun math games for her and these came on the screen!  I don't want to see that much less have my kid see it.  There is a pulsating green button that says Play Me and says it's for free.  This isn't something you want your kids to be tempted to click on.  Moms and dads who read this, please don't let you kids go to this site!!  Funiku, if you are for real and think you are recommending a good site, check it out again......maybe you'll see it's not a very kid-friendly site at all. 

[lots-o-rice]

dont go to cooI math games!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! also just want to stress what the previous poster said about how not "cool" it really is.  There are no actual math games, or very few, and the ads are  :svengo: I couldn't find the little barfing smiley, so you get the fainting one.  My kids were playing one day and there was an extremely x- rated ad going on across the top.  YUCK  don't go there.

 

[Guest blakgeek]

Make The Number for

iOS https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/make-the-number/id895605104?ls=1&mt=8

or

Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.blakgeek.games.makethenumber

 

Full disclosure this is a game I created.

[Kidlit]

I haven't read all the responses (and I'm really sort of scared because of that picture up there  :huh: ), but we are RightStart Math users and LOVE the games.