Math Games to Play at Home

Reminder: Library Tomorrow!

Below are a few math games that your family could play at home. We have played some of them at school and some of them are new. The materials you will need are things that are probably floating around your house - dice, playing cards, coins, counters (legos, beans, buttons, coins, etc.).


Race to $1.00
 You need: a partner, collection of pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and a dollar bill, two dice.

Players take turns rolling the dice and taking that many pennies. On their turn, players may exchange 5 pennies for a nickel, 10 pennies for a dime, 2 nickels for a dime, etc.

Play continues until one player has collected enough coins to exchange them for a dollar bill. To make the game easier, use only one die or choose a smaller amount (50 cents) as the winning amount. 

As you play ask your child: How much money do you have now? Who has more money? How much more?

Sums of Ten

Players: 1

What You Need:

• Deck of playing cards (with the face cards removed)

What You Do:

1. Place cards face up on a flat surface in a 4 x 4 array. Place the rest of the deck to the side.
2. Scan the board for cards that add up to 10. Remove these cards, or card combinations, and place them in a discard pile.
3. If there are no cards or combinations that add up to ten, refill the array with additional cards and see if there are any combinations of ten now.
4. Keep adding cards until you can find a combination that adds up to ten.
5. Remove cards until you can't find any more combinations.

Before and After

What you need: number cards

1.            Shuffle cards together

2.            Deal 6 cards to each player.

3.            Put 2 cards number side up, put rest of cards down in pile.

4.            Take turns putting a number that comes just before or just after one of the face up numbers.

        Play as many as you can.

5.            Take number of cards you played from the facedown pile.

6.            If you can’t play then take 2 cards from the facedown pile.

The player who is out of cards or the player with the fewest cards when there are no more plays wins. 

Addition Top-It

The game is played with a deck of number cards, 4 cards for each number 0-9. (This can be a regular deck of cards with the face cards removed.) As many as four children can play, but at first, children should play the two-player game.

1. Shuffle the deck and place it on the desk with the cards face down.

2. At each turn, players turn over two cards, add the numbers together and call out the sum. Players should check each other's sums.

3. The player with the higher sum takes all the cards. In case of a tie, players turn over two more cards and call out the sum. The player with the higher sum takes all the cards from both plays.

4. Play continues until there are fewer than 4 cards left in the deck. The player who took more cards wins.

Subtraction Top-It

This game is played just like Addition Top-It except that instead of adding their cards together they subtract their two numbers. The player with the largest difference keeps the cards.

Domino Top It 

What you need: dominoes

1.            Place the dominoes facedown.

2.            Each player chooses a domino and compares the total number of dots to the total number on his/her partner’s domino.

3.            The player with the larger total takes both dominoes.  Ties are settled by another draw.

The game ends when time is up or when all dominoes have been drawn.

Tric Trac

Another fun game to practice basic addition facts is Tric Trac. Below are the directions and a picture of the game board. You can easily make your own game board just by writing the numbers out on a piece of paper.

Tric Trac

Materials Needed: 2 dice, 20 pennies, and a hand drawn game mat for each player

1. Cover the empty circles with pennies.

2. Take turns. When it is your turn:

• Roll the dice. Find the total number of dots. This is your sum.
• Move 1 or your pennies and cover your sum.
• OR move 2 or more of your pennies and cover any numbers that can be added together to equal your sum.

3. Play continues until no more numbers can be covered on your gameboard. Your partner may continue playing even after you are finished.

4. The game is over when neither player can cover any more of the numbers on his or her gameboard.

5. Find the sum of your uncovered numbers. The player with the lower sum wins.

Directions and game board can be found here.

Tric Trac is also available as an app. You can find it here.

3, 2, 1 Game

Materials: 1 sheet of paper, 1 pencil for each player

Players: 2

Object of the game: To reach exactly 0

Directions:

1. Write 21 at the top of the sheet of paper.

2. Players take turns. When it is your turn, subtract 1, 2, or 3 from the last number written on the paper.

3. The first player who subtracts and gets 0 as the answer wins the game.

 

Difference Game 

What you need: number cards

40 pennies    

1.            In the center of play: 40 pennies (Bank)

2.            Players each take 1 card from open of the deck and then take the same number of pennies from the bank.

3.            Find out how many more pennies one player has than the other. You may pair as many pennies as you can.

4.            The player with more pennies gets to keep the EXTRA pennies. The rest go back into the bank.

5.            Game ends when there are not enough pennies in the bank to play another round.

6.            Winner: player with the most pennies

How Many Are Hiding

In this class activity, students find the missing number to complete a number sentence while also seeing different representations made by other students.

Material

• 10 or more snap cubes /objects per player
•  A cup for each player

Task Instruction

• In this activity each child has the same number of cubes and a cup.
• They take turns hiding some of their cubes in the cup and showing the leftovers.
• Other children work out the answer to the question “How many are hiding,” and say the full number combination.

Example: I have 10 cubes and I decide to hide 4 in my cup. My group can see that I only have 6 cubes.  Students should be able to say that I’m hiding 4 cubes and that 6 and 4 make 10.