Playing Games at Home to Develop Math Skills
Most parents understand that reading with our children everyday helps them become good readers, and also models for them our own love of reading and lifelong learning. The same holds true for mathematics: we can model for our children the many ways we use math, both incidental (bill paying, building a bookcase) and recreational, through game play.
Almost all games have rules that are derived from logic, strategy, problem solving, and number sense. These fundamental skills form the basis of both games and math. This holds true for both physical games/sports and board games.
Think about the games you enjoyed as a child. In my family, we played Shanghai Rummy, a progressive 7-hand card game, and we still do! We also played all the traditional board games of the day: Monopoly, Operation, Life, Candyland, Clue, Go Fish, Battleship and Concentration. Outside we played basketball, kickball, flashlight tag, and hide-and-seek. We built forts and treehouses and had little sidewalk stores where we sold neighborhood kids cotton candy, snow cones, lemonade, candy bars and tickets to our backyard carnivals.
Play was a big part of our childhood, and, in hindsight, most of our play involved some use of math skills. As adults, we can choose games and activities that will inherently enhance our own children’s understanding of math concepts, and we can slightly alter the games we play with our children to fit their changing levels of development.
For example, dice and card games help with understanding of basic numbers, including the recognition of patterns of pips with their related number symbols. Many board games involve rolling two dice and adding the tops of the dice to determine the number of spaces we move our game piece. This is great for early number recognition skills, counting up and addition. We can slightly alter this practice when our children are ready for higher levels of numeric operations by playing the game so that the number of moves is determined by subtracting or multiplying the tops of the dice. When our children are learning fractions or negative numbers, we can replace the traditional whole number dice with fraction dice or integer dice that have negative numbers. Have a discussion about what a ½ move might be, make an agreement, amend the rules of the game in writing to cover the issue.
One of the most basic card games is concentration. This strategy and memory game involves separating a regular deck of cards into pairs of matching cards which are then shuffled and laid out face down in a rectangular pattern. The older the child, the greater the number of pairs you include. The game is to take turns flipping over two cards in an effort to find a matched pair. If you find a pair, you take the cards and go again. If not, you flip the cards back over and it’s the next player’s turn. As your children get older this game can change progressively to make it more challenging. Initially you might start with six or eight pairs of cards, working up to 13 pairs. After that you can change the rules so that the goal is to find matching triples rather than pairs, and so forth. This game can be challenging for all ages, so give it a try with your family. In order to include varying ages of players, you might alter the rules so that the youngest child needs to find a matched pair, while older children and adults need to find matched triples or even four of a kind.
Some games seem to have math skills built in, like Yahtzee. This simple dice game is both a game of chance and strategy, and can be played with all ages. Whenever you play a game with your child you can discuss the logic of the rules, strategies for winning, or probabilities of certain outcomes. Yahtzee lends itself to all of these types of discussions which can add to the depth of the experience of playing the game.
Many families play Scrabble, which is a great game for vocabulary development and practice with spelling. Scrabble has a lesser-known cousin game called Equate. The Equate board looks like a Scrabble board, but instead of letter tiles, it includes number tiles, as well as tiles with equal signs and math operations (plus, minus, multiply, divide). The goal is for each player or team to create a true equation that connects on to the equations already on the board in the same way Scrabble words must connect to previously played words. This game can be altered to include only the addition symbols, for younger children, or to include fractions and exponents, for older players.
Two games that are great for math skills but don’t require any numeracy or reading skills are Set and Qwirkle. Each of these games involves recognizing matching attributes, such as shape, size, pattern, color. Set is a card game, so is very inexpensive and transportable. Qwirkle is a tile game that just requires a flat surface, no playing board, so can be played anywhere. These games enhance pattern recognition and initiate concepts related to set theory.
Basic games that can help with later integration of algebraic skills include Battleship and Bingo. Each involves a rectangular coordinate system, which can translate into graphing skills on a Cartesian plane. Making a map of your home or neighborhood and creating a scavenger hunt using the map is another fun way to aid early graphing abilities.
Any games or toys that involve building puzzles are great for developing geometric concepts. Exploragons and Zometools are toys that can be used as games by creating challenge goals. Tangrams and Mastermind also require strategic choices.
If your children use digital devices, the best online math games I’ve found are in MangaHigh.com. (FYI: CoolMath is a site to avoid, as it has very little educational value, the URL is a misnomer, in my view.)
Consider playing games with your children as an enjoyable way to further their mathematic development. Of course, having a weekly family game night is a good way to foster pleasant interactions during this challenging quarantine period, but introducing the right games is also an opportunity to help your children’s learning at the same time. Most important, have fun with it.
Submitted by SWS Algebra Teacher/Math Whiz, Kelly Wilderson
