My kids love to play games and honestly so do I. When I am able to incorporate educational games into our homeschool days we find our schoolwork to be more fun and enjoyable! I began using games as part of our homeschool days back when my children were in Kindergarten in simple ways by using beans or candy to make math fun!
We have continually been adding to our game stash throughout the years as my children have been growing up. Since my children and myself are non-mathematicians, making math class fun by using fun math games has been especially important! So, over the years we have purchased and used countless games for our math class that I believe will help your children have fun and maybe even enjoy math class! Each one of the games I’m sharing below have been used and loved by our family!
Our Favorite Fun Math Games
Fun Math Board Games
This is a fun game for the entire family and math practice happens during every player’s turn! From counting spaces to paying bills and salary, math is an integral part of the game of Life!
When I was growing up my brothers and I played Quizmo to practice our multiplication skills. This game is played similar to the classic game of Bingo and they have come out with a version featuring addition and subtraction as well!
If you love the card game Rummy, you and your kids will have a blast playing Rummikub! The rules are very similar, but instead of holding onto a hand of cards you’ll use tiles that fit nicely in the provided racks. Players will need to create matching numerical or sequential melds throughout the game, the first of which must equal 30 points.
You and your children will have fun trying to be the first player to reach the 100th spot on the Chutes and Ladders board! You’ll make your way up and down the game board by spinning the spinner and counting the spaces as you climb the ladders or slide down the chutes!
Learn Your Fractions and Decimals Kit
Teaching your students fractions and decimals can be a frustrating journey…I know it was for me! I spent 6 months teaching my son fractions and this was one of the main resources I used during that time! The Learn Your Fractions and Decimals Kit includes fun board and card games to teach your children how to recognize and determine fractions! It even includes money problems to help your children learn how to turn cents into fractions!
Throughout the game of Trouble you’re chasing down your opponents (and bumping them back to home!) while racing to get all 4 of your pieces to your finish line! Instead of rolling a die you’ll have to “pop” the bubble in the center of the board to “roll” the die, this adds a bit more fun to the game!
Our family loves to play Sorry!, it is a fun game that requires players to count the spaces as they move their piece around the board! A deck of cards tells you how many spaces to move and in order to win you must move all 4 of your pieces to your home which requires your cards giving you the exact amount of spaces needed to reach home!
While this may not be a game you think of using to make math fun, Scrabble is a fun game for older students that requires them to add their points at the end of each round. A bonus for homeschool moms is that it also can double as spelling and vocabulary class too!
Your youngest children will have fun playing Hi Ho Cherry-O with you! This simple game requires players to add or remove cherries from your tree based on the number you spin. Children will work on their number and color recognition and counting skills while playing this fun game!
Fun Math Card Games
If your family is tired of playing the board game version of Monopoly, try grabbing the card game Monopoly Deal. While there isn’t as much math required for this version, your kids will need to add their rent cards and stock pile their money and valued action cards to win the game!
I grew up playing this game with my brothers and mom, we often played in teams which makes it even more fun! Skip Bo is a card game featuring wild cards known as “Skip Bos” and numerical cards from 1-12. You’ll play the cards in an upward numerical order in the play area while the discard area is played in a downward numerical order. The point of the game is to be the first player to get rid of their stock pile. This is a great game to play with children of all ages and you can keep score to make it even more fun!
One of the first games I played with my children when they were young for math class was the classic game of Uno. While it may not seem like a game to incorporate into math class, while playing your children will be working on their number and color recognition.
While playing Canasta you play cards in melds, which are at minimum groups of 3 cards of the same rank. To start you must have a 50 point minimum is required to make your first meld, but as you play you’ll need to incorporate the stop, wild and bonus cards that come your way! Players will be required to use their addition (or multiplication!) skills to keep track of the points in their first meld and they’ll use subtraction for tallying their melds and leftover hand at the end of the game.
All you need to play Rummy is a deck of regular playing cards. Each player works to create 3 and 4 of a kind runs or sequences of a particular suit. Your children will not only work on their number recognition and sequential order skills, but they will also need to keep track of their points throughout the game.
Various Fun Math Games
Have fun taking risks as you rack up the points playing Farkle! Your kids will have to decide whether or not to keep rolling to dice to build up points. If you don’t set any dice aside after any roll during one turn, that’s a Farkle and you’ve just lost all your points for that turn. This is a great game to help your kids work on addition and keeping a tally of the points they’ve accrued during each turn!
My brothers and I grew up using these to make our math class more fun throughout our homeschooling journeys. These are a great resource for on-the-go learning when you’re traveling! You can get them individually or as a package, they also have a Pre-Algebra Intro Kit Game now too!
Another fun math game that works for addition, subtraction and multiplication practice is dominos! I first saw the idea on a friend’s blog where she wrote about teaching her son how to add using dominos. I took it a few steps further with my 5th grader last year and had her use dominos for her multiplication practice! It was a change of pace and provided a fun way for her and I to work on multiplication facts together!
What are your favorite fun math games?
