Adding Up the Christmas Tree [game]

Download a PDF of this game card here.

This activity isn't new to my son, but it is a new version - a holiday one. To see the original, read my Climbing a Mountain of Addition blog post.

This festive take-off is played the same way. A player writes five different single-digit numbers in the ornaments at the bottom of the tree. 

Then, he/she adds the two numbers at the bottom of each upside-down V. The answer is put on the V's point. 

They keep adding up the Christmas tree, until his/her final answer is written in the star at the top. 

The second player does the same. They compare trees. Whoever has the bigger number in the star at the top wins!

TIP: After you print the pages, put them in two plastic sheet protectors (or laminate) and use a fine-tip dry-erase marker so the game cards are reusable.

Upcycled Marble Roll Game (Math Facts Fun)

If you use FINISH® Quantum® dishwashing tablets, chances are good that you have 90 percent of the materials you need to make a fun marble roll game for your kids.

This sweet little game is so adaptable. You can practice tons of math facts (addition, subtraction, multiplication, etc.), or simply ask kids to try and slowly tip the board to roll the marble from one odd number to the next, getting the marble from the top to the bottom row. This is fun at home and great for the car, too!

We played Shake-ah, Shake-ah Subtraction with our upcycled marble roll game.

How to Make an Upcycled Marble Roll Game

Simply save ALL the plastic packaging from FINISH Quantum next time you buy it. You need the plastic grid cover that holds the tablets in place and the “bowl” they sit in.

Remove all the cardboard and sticky glue (I used Goo Gone). Now download the numbers I made, print onto sticker paper, cut out, and peel-and-stick to each rectangle between the ridges of the plastic plate. Note: The ridges should be sticking up around the border of each number. I put the numbers in random order.

Glue a thin strip of craft foam around the interior of the bowl about a 3/4 inch up from the bottom (I used spray glue). Make sure the space is deep enough to allow a marble to roll around freely.

Now place a marble in the bowl and the numbered grid cover on top (numbers facing down). The edges should rest on the craft foam border you added inside the bowl. REMEMBER: The marble and the numbers should be INSIDE the bowl.

On the back of the game, run a thin bead of hot glue around the perimeter to secure the numbered grid so it doesn’t slip out. Let dry.

Shake-ah, Shake-ah Subtraction Instructions

Player 1 shakes the game board, muttering “shake-ah, shake-ah STOP.” He/she pays attention to where the marble stops. This is one number in their subtraction problem. One more “shake-ah, shake-ah STOP” and the player now has two numbers. The smaller number is subtracted from the bigger number and the difference is the score.

Play alternates between players for any number of rounds. The player with the highest score wins!

Does Your Child Speak Subtraction?

Before my son and I got shakin’ and played with our upcycled game, we reviewed some subtraction vocabulary by reading Loreen Leedy’s Subtraction Action. I love her characters and my son loves solving the problems sprinkled throughout the book. (It’s especially entertaining when you read aloud and give Mrs. Prime a crazy accent!)

Climbing a Mountain of Addition [game]

Games. Games. Games. I have figured out that I can get my son to do practically anything if I turn it into a game.

This makes me feel like the queen of deception ... in a good way.

To practice adding two-digit numbers (i.e. carrying numbers), I gave my son a mountain-climbing addition challenge. 

I played too, so we could see who climbed higher (i.e. added to get the largest number).

Playing is simple. Download the one-page PDF I made. Cut apart and laminate. Grab two fine-tip dry-erase markers and a pencil and paper. 

You’re ready!

Download a PDF of these two cards here.

Instructions: Write five single-digit numbers at the bottom of the mountain; do not use the same number more than once. (Use a dry-erase marker so any mistakes can be wiped off with a paper towel, and the mountain can be cleared for another round of play.)

Add the numbers up the mountain until you’re at the top. The higher you go, the harder the math becomes. Use a scratch pad of paper to solve the problems.

Keep your card secret from your opponent.

When you’re done adding, reveal your card to see which player climbed the highest.

We each climbed five mountains – sometimes to heights just over 100. 

Whoa! Mountain climbing is great exercise – or I should say, a great math exercise!

Baseball Math Match-Up

My son’s baseball team is mid-way through the season and with each practice, I see a love of the game growing with all the boys on the team. It’s exciting to witness such enthusiasm, see their understanding of the game grow, and skills improve.

When I conceptualized this activity, I asked my son which sport (baseball, basketball, soccer, or football) he wanted to “play.”

“Baseball,” he said without hesitation. Of course.

I designed a page of four pinstripe baseball jerseys and printed three of the pages onto cardstock. Then I trimmed two of the pages so they were slightly narrower than the third (I wanted to be able to tape the three pages together so the two outer pages of the game board could be folded in on the middle page).

I laminated the pages, along with 12 cut-outs of baseballs. (Download a PDF of the jerseys and baseballs here.)

With the baseballs cut out, I attached velco dots to the back of each and the game board, beneath each jersey. I also taped the game board together, using clear tape on the back to “hinge” the jersey pages, putting the widest page in the middle.

Now, all that was left to do was write the players’ numbers on the jerseys and corresponding math problems on the baseballs (e.g. player 12 would be matched with the ball marked 19-7).

It was up to my son to solve the math problem and place the ball under the jersey with the answer.

Three wrong answers (i.e. “strikes”) and the game was over. Every three problems he answered correctly (i.e. “balls”), he was given a small piece of candy (I used Smarties).

This game was a home run!

Post-It Page Marker Math

I love Post-It® notes. So does my son. I’m not sure what either of us thinks is so special about them, but whenever our learning activities involve Post-Its, we BOTH have fun. This activity is no exception.

I bought a pack of multi-colored Post-It Page Markers at the store and designed three pages for my son to stick them to. Each page has a different number on it (i.e. 12, 25, 60).

On the Post-Its I wrote a variety of math problems (addition, subtraction, and even a few easy multiplication ones). Each pad of page markers had problems with answers that matched to different pages.

It was up to my son to answer the problem and stick the Post-It Page Marker to the right page, giving the lion a mane, the hedgehog quills, or the child hair.

My son had loads of fun with this activity, pushing himself to get each problem right. When he answered wrong, he knew it. There was no page for that marker! He recalculated, and found the marker’s home.

My son solved 33 problems doing this activity (15 for the lion page, 10 for the hedgehog, and 8 for the child)!!

Want to do this activity with only one page? Simply write a variety of problems, many with the answer that’s on the page and other problems with answers that are not. Challenge your child to match-up the right problems and reserve the ones with the wrong answers.

Download the pages I made here.

Driveway Dice Roll Board Game

It’s summer. What are we doing inside, right?!? This little activity takes our math lesson outdoors. Put on the sunscreen and get ready for some subtraction and addition fun!

Prep

Take an empty cube-shaped tissue box and cover it with posterboard. Attach dot label stickers to the sides to mimic a die (I had some left over from our Noun Clown activity). Don't have dot stickers? Color some dots with a magic marker! Now cover the box with clear household contact paper for added durability and to keep the die somewhat clean.

Draw a game board on your driveway with sidewalk chalk. Mark the start and finish clearly. For older kids, make lots of spaces (ours had 47); for younger kids with shorter attention spans or early addition/subtraction skills, keep the board shorter.

Add small numbers in one corner of each space. Then, at random, add “-3, +4, -6, +2,” etc. in some of the board's spaces.

Now you’re ready to play.

How to Play

Players stand at the start and roll the die. Whatever number is on top when the die lands, is the number of spaces the player moves. In the player lands on a space with a plus or minus, they must move the number of spaces noted (i.e. if a player rolls a six, moves six space, and the sixth space says “-2,” they must move back two spaces).

The player can only move forward or backward once per roll. In other words, in the example above, if the player moved back two and that space read “+4,” they would not move again.

As the player moves they should speak the problem created out loud before or as they’re moving. So if a player is on space 14 and they roll a six, they should say, “14 + 6 = 20.”

Players take turns rolling the die and moving forward and backwards on the driveway game board (it helps if you have a person willing to fetch the die for players; little brother LOVED doing this!).

The first player to the finish wins!

Yard Sale Board Game [Counting Money]

It’s yard sale season, which is a wonderful time to work on counting money! I drummed up a game to play with my son that works on the following:

1. Spending your money wisely (e.g. if you have $0.30, you can buy one thing for $0.30 or three things for $0.10).
2. Saving your money to buy bigger ticket items.
3. Exchanging money (e.g. ten dimes can be exchanged for $1.00).
4. Making change (e.g. you buy something that costs $0.75 and pay with a one dollar bill; how much change do you get back?).

What you need to play:

Poker chips (each player uses a different color as gamepieces)

The game board and money cards (download a PDF here)

Funny money in $1.00, $5.00, and $10.00 increments (you can download some here)

Lots of U.S. coins

Yard sale pricing stickers

Prep:

Once you’ve taped the game board together and cut apart the money cards, stick one yard sale pricing sticker on each item on the board (use only a few $5 and $10 stickers).

Objective:

Buy as many items as you can. The player with the most items purchased (i.e. poker chips on the board) when the entire board is filled is the winner.

Rules:

Play alternates between players. We played with two players, but I think you can play with as many as four. Each player gets $1.00 in funny money to start. Then, they draw from the pile of cards.

Whatever amount of money on the card is given to the player and he/she can purchase as many items as they’d like until they are out of money. A gamepiece (i.e. poker chip) is placed on all of the items that are purchased.

A purchase should be made during each turn, unless the player does not have enough money to buy any of the remaining items on the board, or they get the “Oh No” card. In which case, a gamepiece is removed and play resumes with the next player drawing a card from the draw pile.

Before we played, we read a great Mercer Mayer book. This got my son in the spirit of yard saling!

Then we both put on our game faces and raided my husband’s bowl of pocket change. It was a buying frenzy at first, but as the low-ticket items were purchased, the pace slowed. Now, we forced to “save” our money to see who would get the remaining few $5 and $10 items. This was a lot of fun and although it was intended just to work on counting money, there were loads of other lessons built right in.

I think we’re both in the mood to bargain hunt at next weekend’s yard sales now!


CREDIT: I downloaded the currency clip art from TeacherFiles.com.

DIY Shuffleboard Showdown

My son and I went head to head for two games of Shuffleboard on our kitchen hardwood floor the other day. He obliterated me the first game, but I came back and won the second. Both of us were pleased!

Like most games, scorekeeping is required. Shuffleboard’s “10 OFF” box means that players won’t just have to add the points from each round, but they’ll have to subtract too! This was loads of fun and a subtle way to slip in some addition and subtraction practice.

I made the shuffleboard court with blue painters tape. 

The pucks (or biscuits) were large metal closet door pulls (they were being clearanced out at our local hardware store). To distinguish which pucks where whose, I cut some circles of craft foam and placed them inside the pulls, attaching them with a piece of double-sided tape.

Don’t want to buy your pucks? Start saving lids (e.g. spaghetti sauce jar lids, peanut butter jar lids, etc.). You just need six of the same size.

For our paddle, I used the swiffer mop. It worked like a charm.

I put a line on the floor five feet back from the point of the board for my son and I to stand behind. A homemade scorecard helped to keep track of the points. (Download it here.)

Rules of play (for our variation of Shuffleboard)

Play alternates between two players. Each player stands behind a line and pushes the puck with the swiffer toward the shuffleboard. If the puck is inside any part of the board’s triangle, points are earned.

If the puck lands at the end of the board in the “10 OFF” area, the player must subtract 10 points from their score. The opponent can knock a player’s puck off the board with their own.

The first player to get to 45 points is the winner! (The traditional game is played until 75 points are earned; the scorecard I made has lots of rounds to account for extended play.)

Dicey Fractions

What is it about rolling dice that kids love so much? I don’t know, but every dice roll activity I come up with my son loves. This dice roll was made to work on fractions, but incorporates so much more – counting, tallying, animals (i.e. mammals vs. non-mammals), and geometry (shape names, polygons, etc.)!

First we read Working with Fractions, a book by David A. Adler (who also wrote the wonderful book that taught my son all about roman numerals).

Then, I gave my son a fun die with six different colors, animals, and shapes. (I printed this on heavyweight cardstock, cut out, scored the lines with a straight edge and butter knife, folded, and glued the flaps.) 

With a special recording sheet in hand and the timer on our microwave set for 2 minutes, my son was ready to get rolling!

Download a PDF of the die and recording sheet I made here.

He rolled the dice for the entire time, making a tally mark in the boxes under the square that showed up on top of the dice with each roll. I reminded him “One, two, three, four, and five shuts the door” to help him organize his tallies in groups of five.

When the time was up, my son counted the tally marks in each box and added all of the numbers together (I helped). The total was the denominator (the bottom number) on the fraction answers at the bottom of the recording sheet.

To complete the fractions, he had to figure out the numerators (the top number). Several of the fractions required that he add number of rolls from different squares together.

This was good practice to understand what the numbers on a fraction represent and reminded my son about what makes an animal a mammal, which shapes are polygons, and the reinforced geometry vocabulary too!

Geometry Jump!

It’s time to move beyond squares, rectangles, and triangles. With my son toting home worksheets about polygons, I decided to create a fun activity to work on some of the harder shapes – parallelogram, octagon, hexagon, pentagon, and trapezoid.

I took inspiration from a game we played often when my son was younger: Cranium Hullabaloo. If you’ve played this before, you’ll see the similarities.

I made 15 cards with numbers on them (three of each of the five different shapes). I printed them on 15 pages of cardstock in five different colors. (Download them here. Don't forget to shuffle the colored papers before printing!) Then I made a wacky die with things like walk like a chicken, hop, and dance on it. I printed the die on heavyweight cardstock, cut everything out, and glued the die together. Click the picture below to download the die template.

When my son came home from school, we read Shapes in Transportation. This book was perfect to remind my son about the names of the shapes we’d be working with and showed just how common they are.

Having read the book, it was time to get moving. I had my son help me spread the shapes out all over the floor. Then I set the timer on our microwave for three minutes. I told my son that he needed to move to the shape, number, or color I called out as quickly as possible in the way the die dictated.

Ideas for call-outs:

Give an addition and subtraction problem equal to the number on the shape.

Ask that the child move to a particular shape (e.g. hexagon or trapezoid).

Tell him/her to find an odd (or even) number.

Pick one of the colors and call it out.

Instruct the child to move to a shape with a certain number of sides.

When the timer went off, I named one of the above again and if my son was standing on that particular color, shape, or number he was a winner. We played over and over!

Oh, my word, did he have fun!?! This was great math practice that had my son dancing, hopping, crawling, and “swimming” across our living room.

Math Fact Family Roll & Write

Repetition is a GREAT way to help children learn, but if you’re asking them to do something over and over again, it better be fun. Since my spelling word Roll & Write activity was such a hit with my son (and followers, too!), I thought another Roll & Write to practice math fact families would be equally well-received.

I was right; my son loved it!!

How this activity came to be ...

The elementary school my son attends uses the Everyday Math curriculum and for weeks now, his teacher has been sending home fact triangles for my son to cut out and practice. The triangles have a number at each point that can be ordered to create two addition and two subtraction problems.

I’m not going to lie. I can’t really tell if my son is “practicing.” And truthfully, aside from their nifty triangular shape, it’s basically just a flash card. Are you thinkin’ what I’m thinking? Borrrrrriiiiiing!

It was sort of a personal mission to find a way for my son to practice these fact triangles. So I made a die – not just any die, but one with triangular sides - an icosahedren!

Download the template I made here, print on heavyweight cardstock, cut it out, score all the lines with the back of a butter knife and a straight edge, fold, and glue the flaps. That’s all there is to it.

My son marvelled at the die I made. 

Download a PDF of the die template and 2-page recording worksheet here.

I gave him a pencil and recording sheet and told him to get rollin’. When the triangle on top of the die displayed a 10, 7, and 3, he wrote the following problems down:

7 + 3 = 10

10 - 7 = 3

3 + 7 = 10

10 - 3 = 7

When the worksheet was done, so was my son.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Math triangles practiced at last!