Play with Maths: 10 Fun Ideas for All Ages
Mathematics is often seen as a chilly, meticulous, overly logical, and often boring subject. But who says that learning maths can’t be fun?
Too few students get to experience mathematics as the fun and playful subject that it actually is—where exploring, discovering, and learning from your mistakes are all key elements to the game.
In fact, recent findings have shown that play with maths is the key to deep comprehension at all grade levels. In order for students to reach a deep state of thinking and understanding when learning maths, the lessons must allow for freedom to play.
This is why effective math teachers and parents constantly give their students opportunities to play with maths and learn in an environment that is exploratory, challenging, fun, and forgiving of mistakes.
Are you ready to join the Play with Maths movement?
If so, you’ll be in good company, as the concept of math is play has grown extremely popular in recent years. At the time of this writing, the TEDx talk Math is Play by Matthew Oldrige has over 30 million views! If you haven’t seen the Ted talk, check out the video below. The main idea is that every child at any age or grade level should feel the power and pleasure of playing with big and powerful mathematics ideas.
Now that you are familiar with the ideas behind the Play with Maths movement (whether you are a teacher or parent), you are ready to start giving your kids opportunities to explore and learn maths in the context of play in your classroom and/or at home.
Below you will find a list of 10 great ideas, activities, and resources that you can use to inject some play into your upcoming lessons.
Before you check out the list, keep some of the following ideas in mind:
Play with maths should feel like play and not resemble typical classroom learning experiences like harsh grading, emphasis on correct answers only, etc.
Avoid activities that are timed! Emerging research shows that timed math activities can cause math anxiety!
Questions are more important than answers! Encourage your kids to be curious, to think deeply, and to wonder.
Play with Maths: 10 Ideas, Activities, and Resources for All Ages
1.) Board Games
Image via mathforlove.com
Did you know that board games are making a huge comeback in recent years? Play math-related board games is a great way to give kids and opportunity to think about mathematics and number sense in the context of play.
▶ Math for Love Prime Climb is a fun, family-friendly strategy game that helps kids to master multiplying, dividing, factoring, and prime number concepts.
2.) Video Games
Image via mathplayground.com
It’s no secret that kids love playing video games. In the spirit of meeting your students where they are, incorporating math learning opportunities into playing video games is a great way to get kids to play with maths (and reap all of the previously mentioned rewards).
▶ Math Playground is a great website that offers dozens of grade and topic-specific maths video games.
3.) Riddles, Logic Puzzles, and Brain Teasers
Image via mashupmath.com
Working on fun maths logic puzzles and brain teasers is a great way to get kids thinking and problem-solving mathematically inside and outside of the classroom. One of the greatest benefits of play with maths riddles and brain teasers is the use of creative thinking in combination with mathematical thinking!
▶ Mashup Math shares tons of free grade-specific math riddles and brain teasers including modern versions of famous maths riddles including the fan-favorite Destiny Bridge riddle.
4.) Playing Cards Activities
Image via weareteachers.com
Did you know that there are dozens of different topic-specific maths games that you can play with your kids using a standard deck of playing cards? Our favorite is this Mean, Median, and Mode activity!
▶ WeAreTeachers shares an awesome list of the 23 Best Maths Card Games That Students Love!
5.) Dice Games
Image via weareteachers.com
You don’t have to spend lots of money on resources to get your students to play with maths. In addition to playing cards, you can also have loads of fun playing maths dice games like block out and over the mountain.
▶ WeAreTeachers shares an excellent collection of 12 Dice Games Teachers and Students Will Love
6.) Get Up, Get Moving!
One of the easiest ways to play with maths is to get up and move around to engage all of the senses while thinking about and learning math. There are several awesome movement-based math activities (many that can be done outdoors). Some of our favorites are paper airplane graphing, the Barbie bungee activity, and the human number line!
▶ Here are 10 more awesome active maths project ideas!
7.) Operations Puzzles
You’ve probably seen these kinds of maths puzzles go viral on social media. Why? Because they can be super fun and challenging to solve for people of all ages. The cool thing about working on these kinds of puzzles is that solving them requires deep mathematical thinking and the use of algebra skills, which is great for young students to get an opportunity to think algebraically years before reaching advanced mathematics.
▶ Mashup Math shares tons of free maths operations puzzles for students at all grade levels.
8.) Maths Art Projects
Image via artfulmaths.com
It’s no secret that mathematics and art often go hand-in-hand. If your kids love creating art, then try sharing a fun math art project with them!
▶ Artful Maths is an absolutely awesome website that shares great maths art project ideas for all grade levels.
9.) Maths Storytelling
There is a growing research-based movement around learning math through storytelling. If your students love to read, then storytelling can be a great way to play with maths.
▶ MathsThroughStories.org is a great website for maths storytelling resources, including helpful guides to learning how to create your very own mathematical story picture books!
10.) Maths Journaling
Writing about maths helps students to organize their thinking, use important vocabulary terms, and communicate —which leads to deep and meaningful understanding.
In addition to creating their own maths stories, they can also engage in maths play by starting a maths journal. If you are new to the concept of writing as a way of learning math, check out these helpful tips by Edutopia.
▶ Learn more about how to use Think-Notice-Wonder maths writing prompts with your students.
Anthony is the content crafter and head educator for YouTube's MashUp Math and an advisor to Amazon Education's 'With Math I Can' Campaign. You can often find me happily developing animated math lessons to share on my YouTube channel . Or spending way too much time at the gym or playing on my phone.
Did I miss your favorite play with maths activity or resource? Share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments section below!
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