We love mixing it up with our math studies. Playing games is a great way to practice math facts and have a break from all the worksheets and book work.
Plus, games are a ton more exciting than regular old flash cards. Trust me….I love flash cards but I know they can get old quickly!
We use lots of different types of math games in our homeschool. Playing cards, dominos, counting bears and many other math manipulatives are perfect supplies to create games. Some of our new favorite types of math games though are dice games! We’ve found several simple games we can play using dice that reinforce mental math computation. They’re a lot of fun, too!
I’ve created these game boards and score sheets to go along with some of our new favorite dice games. Some of these games have been around for quite some time and some we created on our own. There are instructions included for each game. You can also check YouTube for videos on how to play.
You don’t need a lot of supplies to play – basically some dice, pen or marker and your printed game pages. We like to use highlighters so it’s easy to tell each player’s marks from one another.
My girls love these vintage colored dice that I found on Amazon. I also linked some other cool dice you may want to pick up. Or you can do what we usually do and just steal them from your Yahtzee game! 😉
Bingo chips or daubers are also fun to use as markers if you want to mix it up a bit. We grab these in bulk at the beginning of the school year to keep on hand. While they aren’t necessary, they are definitely more fun to use than markers or pencils.
The games we are currently play have really helped Gwen with her mental math computation. We are working on adding within 10, adding doubles and beginning multiplication so we picked games that would be most helpful to her.
In just a few short days, I’ve seen a huge improvement in her skills. I wanted to focus mainly on addition so I didn’t press the multiplication too much in Capture The Flag. To my surprise, she’s been picking out the multiplication facts on her own and working through them so I know we will definitely continue to build on these games as we dig more into multiplication!
The printables can be downloaded by subscribing to our blog. The set includes:
- game instructions
- going to boston
- pig
- addition 5 in a row
- doubles 5 in a row
- capture the flag
- block it out
I’ll continue to add to this set of printables as we learn or create new dice games. I’d love to hear your favorite math games in the comments below!
