Math is known as a four-letter word in America. Our global ranking on mathematical ability places us at a low “D” grade after 30 countries were tested, and we came out as country number 24 in the results. Two other countries scored about the same as we did, and only 4 countries were lower than us on math scores.
For future economic security, our children must be taught mathematics in a manner that prepares them for a globally competitive employment arena; and, somehow parents who may not have received an adequate mathematical background must try to inspire their young scholars to achieve in this area.
Children enjoy games; the act of following a specific set of rules and activities for the purpose of achieving the honor of winning. Games equalize all abilities, ages, and genders into a neutralized “start” position so that all have the same chance of winning. Parents must choose math games for their children that will allow the child success.
If your old-style flash card math game is not working with your young scholar, assist that child over to your eBay account, and let them finally win that math game by disposing of the cards for extra piggy-bank money. Your child will never realize that you’ve substituted eBay as his new math game until a flash card alternative can be found.
Toddlers are teething on computers; this is a good place to start teaching beginning math game skills to your child. Hasbro Playskool has a line of personal computer games designed for children age 3 and up. Lego has preschool beginning skill math games online for your child:
Lego Brick Buster: is a math game that develops hand-eye coordination, color recognition, counting skills, shape matching, and puzzle mechanics; all while your child only thinks that he’s having fun. The goal is to make the men on the platform drop a colored Lego brink onto a pile of same color bricks so that they explode.
Bricks are pre-arranged in various shaped piles throughout the many playing levels in such a manner that young users will always have at least one pile of bricks explode for enough success to move on to the next scene. Children can play turns with adults on this game; I tried many times to remove all bricks from one scene without success. It was fun.
Lego Turn & Match Game: is a simple skill math game suitable for very young users. Your child must find two matching pictures by turning over two hidden picture choices at a time. Under this game name there are three games to choose from, all played alike.
This Turn & Match game develops beginning counting skills, hand-eye coordination, and beginning deduction skills. A score is kept on the screen in an easy to grasp manner that encourages number recognition. The child can not lose at this game; it guarantee’s success.
On the Lego site, there is an area devoted to parents and educators with many ideas on how to use Lego bricks for educational purposes.
Rainy Day Idea: You can play a Pennies Math Game with young children to keep them entertained. Provide the children 25 pennies, and a set of dice. Roll the dice. Remove as many pennies as there are spots showing on the dice. Do this until all pennies are gone. The last roll continues until the spots and penny count matches exactly.
This Pennies Math Game encourages counting skills, adding skills, number-set recognition skills, and with parent involvement: beginning financial skills if you ask questions such as how many pennies there are in a nickel. All children win while playing this math game, and get to keep the pennies.
School Age children also enjoy math games that are online. As a parent, you may not realize that almost all online games are developing skills that can be used toward future math successes. Online gaming develops hand-eye coordination, keyboarding or 10-key skills, color and shape identification and/or manipulations, and problem solving skills.
There are math games online devoted to specific math skills, but if you have a child who hates everything to do with math, you shouldn’t expect them to want to play these math games. Instead, comb the game choice offerings in other areas to find a “normal” game that incorporates the needed math skills into everyday play.
Online Battleship by Milton Bradley: This math game allows a single player the opportunity to learn mathematical grid problem solving skills while playing this math game against a computer opponent. The goal is to place your battle ships on a grid paper by size, and sink your opponent’s hidden ships by bombing grid-number locations until all ships are gone.
To play, hide the five battleships on your grid and click, ‘Go Battle’. On the next screen, click a square on the grid standing up to send a bomb to that grid coordination to see if a ship is there. If you hit a ship the square turns red. To the right is a list of ships with a small number attached; this is your score card that tells how many ships are left to hit.
Offline Math Class Battleship was one of my daughter’s favorite math games for many years. Two players are needed for each game. Hand out graph paper, and number grids from 1-10 (or more if you’d like) up the side, and mark the grid with alphabet letters across the top to form a square grid playing area.
Next, have players color in 5 battleships in the grid squares of their choice. 1-five squares long. 1-four squares long. 2-three squares long. 1-two squares long. Players then call out grid coordination’s in turns with their opponent while trying to find the hidden ships. When a grid-square choice hits a ship, players must announce the hit, marking the ship. Play continues until one person runs out of ships.
Online Connect 4 by Milton Bradley: This fun online math game is played against a computer that will keep you thinking. Connect 4 is a grid game that allows you to take turns putting colored checkers into a grid until you have 4 in a row to win. With the computer challenging you, players are required to focus on the grid, and practice problem solving skills. This fun game is a good learning tool for all ages working on math skills.
All Ages of people can have a good playing traditional online math games if they have no objections to working with numbers for fun. The trick is to find a game that allows you to continue to build your skills for as long as you would like to keep playing the math game.
Online Da’ Numba Game: This is a fun math game that allows all skill levels to play. After a very short period of time you can visually see the person playing this game becoming faster in their math skills. For online math games devoted to improving number skills, this is my favorite choice.
The object is to clear the board by adding and subtracting adjacent number tiles to match the math game number on the screen. Bonuses are given if you use a black tile or tile with lightening bolt on it.
The first 3-rounds are addition while the following rounds have negative numbers mixed into the tile numbers that you are working with. Users without advanced math skills can succeed; the game gives you three lives to play with. The only bad thing that I can say about this math game is that it takes a full 5-minute to download for play on a dial-up connection.
Online Arithmetile Game: This fun math game is played similar to Da’ Numba Game above, except that it uses addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division skills. All skill levels may play this game; it is the user choice on how to remove tiles with numbers on them to match a game number on the screen. Beginners may remove a long line of 1’s if they’d like to count instead of using more advanced math techniques.
My personal experience with this math game is that I only enjoy playing one or two rounds of play; those first rounds are very fun. After that, I find it fatiguing mentally to keep jumping between counting, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division very quickly. If you are playing in turns with a child, quit instantly when they grow tired. This will keep this math game fun for another day. Download time: 6-minutes on dial-up.
