Math Games

This week our first grade classes were lucky enough to receive lots of new math games from a grant given to our parent council group. We received close to 30 different math games, ranging from games that require logic skills, puzzles, building games, addition and subtraction games, etc! Now this meant that we all had to meet as teachers and figure out how to play each of these games in order to then try to find time in our already packed schedules to teach our classes. Some of the games turned out to be a lot of fun, and to be games that I would enjoy playing with my fiends at home! After racking my brain trying to figure out how I could possibly teach 20 students how to play one single math game, a fellow first grade teacher and I decided that we would invite parent volunteers in on a Friday afternoon and set up centers. The parents could come in and teach a group of kids how to play one of the games at each center- introducing only about 10 different games (given that I had 10 parents volunteer for this) and then students would rotate around the room gaining exposure to each of the math games. After sending out the invites, I was lucky enough to have exactly 9 parents volunteer their time which I thought was perfect because I could run the 10th station.

So on Friday March 31st we played math games during the afternoon. It was a lot of fun to have parents in to play these games and teach our class. Everything went very smoothly and after getting feedback from the parents that came in, they also enjoyed their time with us.

I am a firm believer in having fun in the classroom, and this was the perfect way to do that while still working on our math skills. Now that my students know how to play roughly 10 different math games, we will be making this a weekly thing on Friday afternoons!

Here are some pictures of our class playing with two of the new math games! Since I was managing a station during this time, I was unable to capture all of the games but I will list the names of all of the math games below in the event that any of you would like to check them out for your own classroom. (All of the games were purchased from Amazon and seem to be adaptable for any grade level)


Bananagrams
Mindware- Q-bitz
Flash the Lightning Fast Game
Bendomino: Dominoes with a Twist! Tile Game
Super Genius - Addition
20 Express Game
Sumoku
Double Shutter Tin
Pixy Cubes
Rummikub
Lucky Numbers Family Game
Educational Insights Even Steven's Odd!
Learning Resources Mental Blox Critical Thinking Game
Tenzi Dice Game & 77 Ways to Play
Shape-O-Metry
Mancala
Spot It! Numbers and Shapes
SET: The Family Game of Visual Perception
Architects Game
Tangramino Game
On the Dot Game
Brainwright Logic, Dice Dots Deduction puzzle
Brainwright GeoBrix, Solve Build Create Puzzle
Educational Insights Canoodle
Think Fun Math Dice
Learning Resources Sum Swamp
Sequence Numbers
Sequence Dice
Phase 10