Why Games Are Important In The Math Classroom

How often do your students play games during math? Do you bring them out on special occasions only? Maybe Fun Friday? Here are five reasons games should be a regular part of your math instruction:

1. Computational Fluency: This is something we want all of our students to have. A lack of fluency can become a serious impediment to performance in math. When all of a student's effort is spent on figuring out basic facts, they cannot focus on the real work of math which is problem solving. There are MANY games out there that build fluency. One of my favorite store-bought ones is Sumoku. It's great for practicing repeated addition and building multiplication skills.


2. Strategic Thinking: One of our goals as math teachers is to teach students to problem solve in multiple ways. Thinking strategically and choosing the most efficient way to solve a problem takes a lot of practice. When engaged in playing a game, students will do this naturally without even realizing that it's happening. One my students' favorite games for the past three years has been The Grocery Game. To play, they must fill their grocery bags while staying within their budget and having as much money left over as possible. This requires not only addition and subtraction, but planning, estimation, and strategy. Here is a picture of my students playing this game:




3. Real-world Connection: Want to make your math instruction meaningful? Then use games! One of my favorite things to do is have a guided whole group lesson and then bring out a game at the end that uses the same skill. Then, they get to play the game with their friends! Sometimes they can borrow my game to take home and play with their family! See, math isn't just for the classroom. It isn't something that you just sit and do on paper. There are many games available that teach real-life math skills (see The Grocery Game in #2). Want a really fun homework assignment? Tell your students go home and play a game of darts (lots of addition!) or anything else that requires keeping score. Or have them run sprints and then calculate their average time. There are so many ways math is incorporated into everyday life.


4. Student-Driven: What sounds more fun: solving problems your teacher came up with or playing a game with your friends? As awesome as you think you are, I promise that your students would rather play the game. Know why? Because they're in charge. They are choosing who goes first. They are drawing the cards and asking the questions, They are determining who wins. When students are in charge of their own learning, magic happens. Enough said.


5. Motivation: One of the best reasons to use games (maybe THE best) is that it motivates kids to do math. Many children (and some adults) don't get why math is important and no amount of telling them will make them think otherwise. By using games, you are giving those kids a reason to do math. Not because you said so, not because it's part of school, but because it's part of an activity that has personal meaning. Even the most reluctant math students will join in when you bring out the games and they're almost always excited to do so!

My Mid-Year Bag Of Tricks

We've passed the half-way point of the school year (yay!!) and this is when things can start to get a little bit boooring... for the kids and for me. Since I've had the same class two years in a row now, we're really good at our routines. But I've noticed some of them tuning me out lately. Maybe they've gotten just a little bit too comfortable and familiar with how I do things. Like during math, they KNOW I'm going to model it first, so maybe that's a good time for a quick nap, right? Ugh! So... time to pull out my bag of tricks!

What? Huh? A bag of tricks? Yeah, I've got a few little things up my sleeve to get the class back on track. Every teacher has them, but here are a few you might not have tried before...

1. YOU Are the Teacher - My kids love this one! After teaching a concept, I ask who wants to be the teacher. Whoever volunteers gets to come up and tell me what to do step-by-step. I do EXACTLY what the "teacher" tells me, even if it turns out to be completely ridiculous. This works really well for procedural tasks like subtraction with regrouping or a scientific investigation. If the end result isn't correct, another student gets to come up and try to teach me. The one who finally gets me to complete the task correctly earns a little reward.

2. Are You Smarter Than Your Teacher? - This is a fun competitive game for reviewing concepts at the end of a unit. It works well for science and social studies. First, I prepare a set of questions for the topic. Then, I divide the class into several groups and give them each a copy of the questions. They work with their groups to come up with the answers. (Sometimes I allow them to use their books, depending on how difficult the questions are.) 

After this brainstorming session, it's game time! I start by reading a question to team one. If they get it right, they earn 2 points. If not, they get to choose one of the other teams to steal by answering it. A successful steal earns that team 1 point. If that team also gets it wrong, I announce the answer and get the point myself. Then, I move on to the next question which goes to team two and follows the same procedure. We keep playing until all questions are used. The team or teacher with the most points at the end is the winner.

3. Write The Test - I like to use this one for math. Before I start instruction, I tell the class that they will be writing their own test. As you can imagine, they immediately perk right up. The catch is that I only select the very best questions, so they really have to pay attention and put forth their best effort. 

After I've taught the concept, I hang 5 to 10 papers around the room with various prompts on them such as "two-step problem involving division" or "an area problem with an answer of 18". I place a basket next to each station, pair the students up, and give them a stack of post-its. They quietly move around the room, discussing the prompts, and creating their own test question for each one. They write them on the post-its and place them in the appropriate basket. Later, I go through them and choose the best ones to use as quiz questions. The kids LOVE seeing their own questions on a test and the activity really builds their critical thinking. It also shows me who has a thorough understanding of the concepts and who is way off base.

4. Third Grade Detectives (or whatever grade you teach) - I have found that any kind of "investigation" gets the kids refocused. Sometimes I make them myself, like this fact and opinion center:

But there are plenty of activities on the web to keep your little detectives busy. For math, I love Scholastic's Math Maven's Mysteries. They are perfect for third and fourth graders:

The nice thing about these is that you can print them out, play the audio, or download them for your interactive whiteboard. My class loves working on the mysteries so I use them as a reward: Work hard during math meeting and we'll have time for a math mystery.

5. The Outdoor Classroom - I live in Florida, so this one is perfect for the middle of the year. If you're in one of those frigid, snowy, arctic places where you have to wear coats, this might not be for you. I love grabbing a pile of clipboards and moving our lesson outside. We can sit on the grass or sidewalks and enjoy the fresh air while we learn. Sometimes we can do our work with sidewalk chalk. The deal with this trick is that the second the kids gets rowdy or off-task, it's over and we go back inside to our desks. It's a sad, miserable punishment to lose outside classroom time!

So those are my little tricks for getting through the usual mid-year crisis. Do you have any special tricks of you own? I'd love to hear your comments and ideas!

Build A Snowman

I've been looking online for some fun (yet educational) activities to get us through Crazy Week. There's nothing worse than running out of things to do the week before winter break. Down Time = Wild Children. No thank you!

So I came across this little online math game:

It's starts with an empty space where the snowman is. Players are presented with a story problem and they have to determine which operation they would use to solve it. If the correct answer is selected, part of the snowman appears. They keep playing until the snowman is complete. Cute, huh? 

Spoons in the Classroom

When I was a kid, one of my favorite games was Spoons. It was something I often played with my youth group friends on long bus rides to Bible Bowl tournaments. It was the perfect game because you can play with any number of people, all you need is deck of cards and some spoons (or any reasonable substitute), and the rules are simplistic.

I had pretty much forgotten about the game until recently, when I was trying to think of some activities for indoor recess days. Getting out the board games can be messy and I hit my limit for 4 Corners about mid last year. So, this week I decided to teach my class the joy of Spoons. Here's how to play...

The object of the game is to get 4 of a kind and not be the player left without a spoon. You will need spoons (1 less than the number of players) and a set of cards. 

To begin, place the spoons in the center of the table and deal 4 cards to each player. The rest of the deck is stacked face-down beside the dealer. Play starts with the dealer drawing a card from the deck and passing one from his hand face-down to the player on his left. That player takes the card, decides whether he wants to keep it or not, and passes a card from his hand to the next person.

Each player does the same as quickly as possible. The last player before getting back around to the dealer, starts a discard pile with the card he is getting rid of.  It is then the dealers turn again to draw a card from the deck and start passing. Players should have 4 cards in their hands at all times.

Play continues until one person ends up with 4 matching cards in his hand. At that time, he takes a spoon from the table. He may either try to sneak it away or grab it quickly. Either way, when the other players notice, they too will grab a spoon. The player left without a spoon is out. The game continues until one person is left who is then the winner. If the deck runs out of cards during the game, players should shuffle the discard pile and then continue.

Here is a video showing a group playing the game: 

Fun, right? My class absolutely loved it and now they keep asking to play. The problem is that we don't actually have time to play all day. I mean, we DO have to learn sometime. Well luckily for them, I realized I could turn Spoons into an awesome review game for all kinds of skills. How about collecting four synonyms or four related math facts? What about four words with the same phonics pattern? The possibilities seem endless!

Now I feel inspired to start adapting other games for the classroom. After all, shouldn't learning be fun?