4 Fun Ways to Get Your Kids to Practice Math with Math Games at Home
Math skills are some of the most important skills for your child to learn. Math is used every day, in so many aspects of our lives. Even though we use math every day, finding ways to make math fun for your kids can be challenging.
We are big on incorporating math into as many everyday activities as we can – at the grocery store, at a softball game, in the kitchen – we will sneak math practice in any time we can!
These 4 tips and ideas will help you keep math fun for your kids and encourage them to practice their math facts daily without making it feel like schoolwork. You’d be surprised at how practicing math facts daily helps improve your child’s problem-solving and analytical skills.
Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are ‘affiliate links’. This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, I will receive an affiliate commission. I was compensated to review Beast Academy Playground. I was not required to write a positive review. The thoughts and opinions expressed here are my own and I never recommend a product or service unless my family loves it!
Beast Academy Playground Math Games
You may be familiar with Beast Academy. Beast Academy offers printed and online math curriculum for ages 8-13. The fun comic book-style lessons encourage mastery of math concepts while following the adventures of the Beast Academy monsters.
To encourage math play at home to reinforce and strengthen math skills, they’ve introduced a brand new math game website.
The new Beast Academy Playground is a free collection of activities, crafts, and tabletop math games that the entire family will enjoy. Every week a new video is released sharing how to play one of the games. Kids ages 4 and up will build confidence in problem-solving and develop numerical literacy through fun, easy-to-learn games.
The math games at Beast Academy Playground make it easy to make math time, playtime! (Here’s a hint, don’t even tell the kiddos they are math games, just call them tabletop games or monster games)
Did I mention that Beast Academy Playground is free? Yes, completely free!
Watch our video on how we use Beast Academy Playground, why we love the games, and some tips to keep your kids wanting to practice at home!
Hop over and check out some of the fun games (some of our absolute favorites are PIG and Troll Hole).
Incorporate Math Games Into Everyday Tasks
We make math games out of everyday tasks, like grocery shopping, cooking, feeding our chickens. If you think about it, you can make a game out of pretty much any task or chore. Just add some math fact practice, a way to win, and some fun banter, and if you have a math game.
Here are some examples of ways we make math games from our everyday tasks:
Grocery totals
While grocery shopping, have each child estimate the total in their head as you shop. The closest as checkout wins! For younger kiddos, you can give them a pencil and paper and let them add the totals as you shop.
Baking conversions
Bake an entire recipe but convert all the measurements – instead of using cups and tablespoons, ask for them to tell you the recipe using 1/3 cups and teaspoons.
Skip Count EVERYWHERE
The kids aren’t allowed to walk/move about the house unless they skip counting their steps.
If you need some help practicing skip counting, you can grab the multiplication charts that we use. Just print and hang them up for easy reference!
Do Not Enter
Tape index cards with math equations along the door frames of each doorway in the house. To pass through the door, the kids must take down a card and solve the equation.
Hide & Seek
Hide math problems and answers on index cards throughout the house. When the kids stumble across one they have to find a matching problem/answer card.
Number of the Day
Have a “number of the day” and post it where everyone in the house can see it. Throughout the day, everyone must give an equation or word problem that includes that number on the spot.
Create a Family Math Competition
We are a pretty competitive family. We keep a running scoreboard in our homeschool room of how many card games each family member has won. So adding a little competition into our math fact practice just seems natural.
Many schools hold math-a-lons or math challenges for students. Take that idea and create your family math competition. You can create teams or make it an individual challenge.
Not sure what types of challenges to use? You can use the games and activities from Beast Academy Playground for your family math competition! The games are perfect for the entire family to play.
We choose 1 or 2 games to play during our family game night each week. The games are super easy to learn and most only need a pen and paper to play.
Create a scoreboard to hang on the wall and track the winners of each game. You could even design a family math-a-lon trophy and pass it to the winner each week or month.
Have fun with your competition, but keep it friendly. Encourage the kids to practice their math facts all week long in preparation for the family math competition. (If your kids are competitive like mine, they will be practicing ALL the time so they are on the best game when the time comes!)
Use a Reward System With Math Games
Another fun way to incorporate building math skills at home is to use a reward system. Using math games and math practice as a way to earn rewards, screen time, even spending money is a great incentive system.
We have a chore chart that the girls follow each week. They can reduce their chores by playing math games or completing math questions. This encourages them to want to practice their math so they get out of doing laundry and cleaning the bathroom.
Although this doesn’t turn out to be a win for me – I get stuck with the extra chores – it’s proven to be motivating. I’ve even offered extra screen time if they show me they can skip count, complete a math problem scramble, or practice flashcards for 15 minutes.
Have fun creating a system that works for everyone, is motivating, and encourages the kids to have fun with math. Keep Beast Academy Playground bookmarked for easy access, so you can play a quick game or two in your free time. And remember to reward and celebrate the progress that your kids make in math!
