I absolutely love using games to help teach math skills! Over the years, I have come across oodles of brilliant math games for kids—from DIY Math Guess Who, to the pencil and paper game Strike It Out, to classics like Yahtzee and Battleship.
Today, I’m going to share 10 of my favorite math games from fellow bloggers, plus 5 classic games perfect for building math skills in your third grader.
Whether you’re looking to spark a love for numbers or just need some engaging activities for a rainy homeschool day, these games are perfect for making math a fun and enjoyable experience!
Before we get into all of the fun math games for kids, you’ll want to grab this Free Hundreds Chart Printable Pack! It includes eight different hundreds charts, perfect for playing all sorts of math games, like these 8 Fun Hundreds Chart Games.
15 Fun Math Games for Kids
To start our collection of math games for kids, here are 10 brilliant ideas from some fellow bloggers! After these, you’ll find 5 of my favorite classic games for building math skills in kids.
#1 Math Boggle
by The Average Teacher
Have you ever played Boggle with letters? This one is similar, but instead of finding words, kids will find and write down as many equations as they can. Numbers must be touching one another either horizontally, vertically, or diagonally, but they don’t have to follow a straight line. So in the example above, you might come up with 2 × 6 = 12, or 7 + 8 – 10 = 5, or even get a little wild and find super long equations like 8 × 4 ÷ 8 × 11 ÷ 2 − 12 = 10!
#2 Math Kaboom
by All About 3rd Grade
If you’ve never played Kaboom before, what are you waiting for?! Not to put too much pressure on you, but this simple to set-up game can be used to practice nearly any math skill (and telling time, and sight words, and letter sounds, and…). You’ll be coming back to this one again and again!
#3 Area Dice Game
by Matematica in gioco via Facebook
This is such a fun way to practice area with some strategy sprinkled in! Players take turns rolling two dice and coloring in the corresponding array. Whoever fills their grid with arrays first wins. Come on, double sixes!
#4 Multiplication Squares
by Games 4 Gains
Have you ever played the dot game where players take turns connecting dots to create squares? This game is similar, except players take turns rolling two dice, then looking for the product on the page and drawing a line on one of it’s sides. When a player draws a line that closes a square, they fill the square with their color. The player with the most colored squares at the end of the game wins.
#5 Four in a Row Multiplication Game
by The Activity Mom
In this Multiplication Bingo Game, players take turns rolling two dice and finding the product on the bingo card, covering it with a marker. The first player to cover five in a row wins!
#6 Guess Who Math Games
by Life Between Summers
I love these math variations of Guess Who! Life Between Summers has some wonderful ideas for using an old Guess Who game to practice place value, addition, multiplication, telling time, shapes, fractions, decimals, and more.
#7 Domino Multplication Game
by Fun Games 4 Learning
Dominos are another wonderful tool for practicing all sorts of math skills. In this domino math game, kids will practice their multiplication math facts. To play, place all of the dominoes face down on a table. Each player each flips over a tile and multiplies the two ends together. The player with the highest product wins and gets to keep both dominos. Whoever has the most tiles after they have all been flipped wins!
#8 Strike It Out Math Game
by University of Cambridge
I love a good pencil and paper game! Strike It Out might just become your new favorite game. Simply draw a number line and take turns crossing off numbers to create math facts until no numbers remain. But there’s a catch—each player must start with the answer from the previous player’s math fact. Can you figure out a way to use all of the numbers?
#9 Math Card Games
by The Average Teacher
Whether you’re adding up scores in one of your favorite card games, or trying a math twist on an old classic (like this Multiplication War card game), playing cards are a fabulous tool for practicing math skills!
#10 Math Dice Games
by What Do We Do All Day?
There are so many fun and easy dice games to help practice math facts, probability, and more! What Do We Do All Day? put together a wonderful collection of easy to learn, fun to play games that you can check out right here, like this Knock-Out dice game, where players race to roll and add their scores trying to avoid the ‘knock-out’ number.
Classic Games for Building Math Skills
From adding up scores, to developing strategic thinking, to learning about probability and resource management, almost all board games practice math skills in one way or another!
Below are five of my favorite classic games that are perfect for building math skills with your third-grader:
- Yahtzee:Yahtzee is wonderful for encouraging quick mental math as you add up your dice and calculate scores. It also helps to develop strategic thinking as players decide the best combinations to maximize their points.
- Darts: Children can practice math with darts by adding up the scores from each throw, helping them improve their addition and mental math skills. You can also practice subtraction by calculating how many points are needed to reach a target score. You could even “throw” in some multiplication by multiplying a score when throws land on the same number!
- Chess: Chess helps build math skills by fostering critical thinking and problem-solving abilities, which are essential for tackling complex mathematical concepts. The game also enhances spatial reasoning and pattern recognition, as players must anticipate and calculate their opponent’s moves while strategizing their own.
- Shut the Box:In Shut the Box, players roll two dice and flip down numbered tiles corresponding to the sum of the dice or a combination of numbers. The goal is to flip down all the tiles, or as many as possible, before ending their turn. This is a fun game to practice addition and strategic thinking as you decide which tiles to flip down!
- Battleship:Playing Battleship helps children practice using coordinates on a grid to locate and identify positions. It also encourages strategic thinking and logical deduction as they track hits and misses to find their opponent’s ships.
How Wee Learn Math Curriculum
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Thank you so much for reading, my friend! I hope you are inspired to dive into some fun, hands-on math games with your little one.
xo
Sarah
