DIY Math Fact Game for All Ages

Ok, this is a 'proud mommy' post! My 5th Grader made up a game for all age levels to practice their math facts. I'm not sure I could be this creative. First, she made a game board out of black poster board and cut-up pieces of colored construction paper. - multi-color Post-Its would make for an even easier assembly. She glued the construction paper 'squares' onto the board in a swirly path to make a game board. On a few color squares, she wrote various single digit numbers (I'll explain why in the directions below). They use 2 dice, game pieces (any little trinket will work), and my little Tonka brings along his number line.

The Rules: Start youngest player to oldest.  (Cause, let's face it, if you don't let the littlest ones go first, you've either already lost them or incited a riot)

The first player rolls the dice. Depending on their math level, they either add or multiply the two numbers and call out their answer. They only get to move if the first answer they say is correct - no guessing. For adders, if the answer is 5 or less, move 1 space. If the answer is 6 or more, move two spaces. For multipliers, if the answer is a single digit, move 1 space and if the answer is 2 digits, move two spaces.

If they land on a space with one of those numbers written on it as I described above, roll one die to try to match the number. If they do, move ahead that number of spaces. For instance, if they land on a square with a 3 written on it, and they roll a 3, you move ahead three spaces. If they roll a 4, remain in that spot.

You could vary this to include division by rolling 2 of the same kind dice to form a 2 digit dividend and then roll again with 1 die, to find a single digit divisor.

The first person to get to the end of the game board wins!

Such a Great Idea.... I thought!

It was a dreary Monday morning, but I was all-a-bustle in the living room setting up for our coolest kindergarten math activity yet - HOT WHEELS MATH! I saw this on Frugal Fun 4 Boys and HAD to try it! This was a home-run, guaranteed. I gathered my son's humongous pile of cars, printed a blank graph, grabbed a pencil and enthusiastically called my little Tonka into the room. Well, Mr. Fuzzlebuns decided he was not really in the mood for school on this rainy day and did not respond in the giddy fashion I was so sure he would!

Anyway, we sat together and sorted his cars into piles by color, added various colors together to see what they would total and even graphed the number of cars he owned in each color. After about 5 minutes of this tickle-me-pink activity, my son grumbled that he didn't want to do this. Grrrrrr. So in my "Mommy voice" I responded, "Well, would you rather just do your workbook?" sure that would convince him what fun he was having. Yep, not so much. He quickly responded with a sigh and said "Ok". Then he walked to his desk and sat with pencil in hand. Hmph! Well, I still think it's a fantastic idea and maybe we'll try it again - on a sunnier day!

Measurement Match Game

If you are homeschooling a child about 8 or older, you probably get those frequent questions like, "How many ounces are in a pound again?" or "There's 4 quarts in a gallon, right, Mom? Come on, I know I'm not alone here. So, out of necessity...invention. I made a memory game for my girls to match one measurement with its corresponding equivalent.

Just print the first six pages on card stock, put them back in your printer, and print the last page 6 times (on the back of the original 6). Then laminate for durability and cut them out. This game worked really well to help the girls review. Click the image above to grab a free copy for yourself!

Monster Freebies!

 It's October, so I thought it would be fun to post some of the great Monster Theme activities that are out on the web. There are a ton available, but for the sake of us thrifty moms, I am only including the oh-so-budget-friendly FREE items on my site.

We have started doing some "Monster Math". We began by reading a book called Monster Math, by Anne Miranda. I checked mine out from the local library, so still free. Otherwise, you can click the picture below to buy your own from Amazon.com.

It's a funny story about a little monster having more and more friends come over to his birthday party, first by ones, then by 10's.  By the end of the book, the mommy monster has gotten all but her own little monster out the door and is totally exhausted!

Then we worked on putting the right monster into the right bed by matching the number with its correct number word. You can get your own copy of this free activity by clicking the picture below.

 

This game from Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits is played like the game of memory. Students place the monster cards face down. They will take turns turning over two monster cards. If the two cards add up to twenty, they keep them. When all the cards have been matched the game ends. The student with the most cards is the winner. Click the little monster below to download your free game!

 

 Here are some Monster Counting Cards from the Over the Big Moon blog.

 Below is a dice game from Crystal at Kreative in Kinder. Print out enough copies for partners to share. I would print on cardstock and laminate for future use. Provide some sort of counter (erasers, bears, blocks, etc) and two dice per pair. Have children take turns rolling the dice and moving their counter that many spaces. For greater difficulty, have them add two dice together or subtract the smaller number for the larger one. These are sure to be a hit! Focus on counting, addition, and subtraction.

 Here is a Monster Madness sight word activity from Mrs. Freshwaters Class

In this center children use colored monsters to assist with solving word problems. This center can be used again and again as it includes 16 different word problems using 5, 6, 7 or 8 monsters.

Here's an entire Pre-K Monster unit from 2 Teaching Mommies  absolutely FREE!

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New Freebie from Me!

In the spirit of this fall season, I've created a multiplication table candy corn activity. Download your own copies by clicking the image above! For Multiplication facts 7-12, click here.

Great "Doubles" Math Freebie!

Wow! I found this great Math Freebie posted by Fern Smith on her blog. I couldn't believe it was more that 50 pages and FREE!!!  I had to share with all of you! It has puppies and pirates - something for everyone and helps reinforce the concept of doubling numbers in math. Hop on over here and download one for yourself! Also check out her blog for many other great center activities or powerpoints.

Number Line Freebie

Hello all! I'm so excited to be posting my very own freebie!  My little man was having a difficult time grasping how to "count up" when adding instead of recounting all of the items together. So, I made this number line and use an eraser animal to move along the line and count up. I have included directions to assemble it. Just click on the image above to download your own!

New Friends!

On our 10th day of school, we introduced Zero the Hero! He comes every 10th day to help us understand place value. After digging through the tub of stuffed animals for a cute little friend who might not be terribly missed, I found this little monkey and in a whirl of scissors, fabric and thread, transformed this once simple toy into a Numeric Super Hero! For more ideas on using Zero the Hero with your kids, check out these links:

1. Mrs. Shehan's Kindergarten
2. Mrs. Kilburn's Kiddos 
3. KinderTeacher 

Another new friend that joined our class is Greater Gator. He helps us learn equivalency skills in math. The Greater Gator always wants the bigger number, cause boy, he's hungry! My little man had a great time cutting out the teeth, gluing the 'jaws' and then  chomping the larger piles of blocks, and counters.