There are so many cool maths games you can play with kids, even young kids.
And the coolest thing is that you don't need to fork out for fancy equipment to play these maths games.
In fact I reckon the most cool kids' maths games are those that let children explore numbers in everyday lives.
My 3 year old has chicken pox and as after an afternoon of fever and a bit of night time stress from the itching she is bursting with energy, I thought it was a great opportunity for some maths fun.
We've been exploring big numbers recently so we created a chicken pox sweep stake in which the whole family got to guess how many chicken pox spots my daughter was going to get.
To support the sweep stake I quickly created this 10 by 10 chart that you could whip up in a few minutes on the computer or just draw by hand. (Kids really aren't fussy).
At the most basic level it provides a cool opportunity for kids to talk about which numbers are bigger or smaller and to make and adapt estimates.
But perhaps most importantly for young kids it helps them - like an abacus - to visualise base 10.
The recognition that our numbers are not a never ending series of random digits but repeating sets of 10 is one of the most powerful breakthroughs a young child can make in understanding numbers.
Kids won't make that breakthrough over night but providing lots of cool games through which they see numbers organised as 10s ... and then 100s and then 1000s ... will provide them the essential foundation they need to really "get" multi-column arithmetic when they are older at school.
You can create a sweep stake for all sorts of every day events and interests. I think the trick is to pick subjects that your individual child will think are cool.
If you enjoyed this post check out my other maths posts + follow my numbers board on Pinterest ...
And if you're looking for more cool maths games for kids do check out the posts below and feel free to link up your own posts ...
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