How to make math for kids fun: Funny cartoon numbers.

Exciting Math for Kids
- 16 Fun Math Activities and Counting Games

Math for kids can be quite the challenge, but fortunately learning approaches means everything. There are many great ways to make learning math fun and yet still highly effective.

This is where fun math activities, printable math games, multiplication math games, fun math games for kids, elementary math games, kindergarten math games, preschool math activities, and cool math games for kids come in handy.

These 16 fun math games for kids are what will make it easier for your kids to learn.

You may not think that you have the creativity to make your own math multiplication games or kids math games, but the truth is that you don't need to.

You can turn pretty much any game into a math game, and any activity can have a focus on math.

These fun math activities are what will make it possible for your kids to learn if you take the time to try and make math fun for them. :-)


The Importance of Using Math Games for Kids to Make Math Fun and not Like 'Hard Work'

While you use language every day, science gives you the chance to learn things about your body or animals around you, history teaches you all about kings and queens and other fun things, math can be just plain boring and practical - at least that's how most kids see it.

For the majority of the parents around the world, trying to get their kids to do math homework is harder than trying to get them to clean their rooms. When teaching kids that math can be fun, the little ugly math duckling gets to grow into a beautiful swan.

Unless your child happens to be one of the very small percentage of children around the world that are good at or like math very much - and, if you are, lucky you! - then it is likely that your kid isn't going to want to do his math.

Kids often feel that they shouldn't have to spend so much time doing all the work of adding, subtracting, counting, multiplying, dividing, and using fractions, and so they instinctively rebel against doing math.

This is where the math games for kids come in!

If math is such a challenge, that's when it becomes your challenge to make it fun for them.

Making math for kids fun will help to change the way they look at their learning. If they see the math as only something that they have to do for school, you can bet your boots that they are going to get bored of "hard work" very quickly.

Your job is to take the math problems, make them fun for the kids, and change the way your kids look at this 'work'.

If you can take some of the 'work' out of math for your kids, they are much more likely to be much more interested in learning all about math.

The point of math games for kids is turning math into a beautiful swan from the Ugly Duckling that it is to them right now.


5 Fun Math Games for Kids

Here are five fun math games for kids - games that you can play any time you want without too much preparation or effort on your part:


House Counting Addition

This math for kids game can be a fun way for you and your kids to pass the time in the car, but also a great way to practice their math skills at the same time.

If you are driving through a residential area, count the numbers of the houses that you pass.

Each child gets to count the numbers of the houses they find - a challenge to spot the house number - and the first to reach 1000 wins the game. If you don't feel like making it into a competition, count together - that can be a fun challenge too!

You can also do this with commercial areas, or even with the mile markers if you are driving long distance.

Whether you do this with mental calculations, a piece of paper and pencil, or a calculator for each child, it can be a fun way to give them time to practice their math skills while working together or competing against each other.


Monopoly

For parents that want their kids to learn about counting, addition, subtraction, and multiplication, Monopoly is probably the best board game you can use.

Counting is taught as the child moves forward a certain number of spaces, which they determine by adding up the number on the dice that they have rolled.

They have to subtract money from their personal pile, or they have to determine how much it will cost to buy houses and hotels on their properties.

They can even learn about how things become double, how to make fractions, and how the financial system works (roughly, of course).

All in all, Monopoly is probably the best of the math for kids board games if you are trying to teach your kids math.


Snakes and ladders can easily be transformed into a fun math game for kids.Snakes and Ladders

The simple board game can present you with a way to teach your kids math. Most boards have exactly 100 spaces, making it easier for you to do simple math.

When your child climbs a ladder, have them do the mental calculation in their heads to determine how many spaces forward they went in a single move.

If they drop down a chute, have them subtract the number of their current space from their original space to determine how many backwards they went.

As a twist, have the person that reaches the end first calculate exactly how many spaces behind him or her, each of the other players are. Those that don't calculate right move back to the space where they were before they reached the end.


Fun with Lunch

Meal times can be a very educational time, especially if you are going to teach your kids about multiplication and addition.

Say you are a family of 5 people; two adults and three kids. If each person eats two sandwiches or three slices of pizza each, how many will you need?

If Jimmy only eats one sandwich but Daddy eats four and Sally eats 2, how many will you need?

Almost every simple lunch or dinner can be used as a moment to teach your kids a bit more about math, and you will find that there is no end to the kid math lessons if you think creatively.


Coin Counting

Counting coins can be a fun math activity.If you have a small collection of change, it can be the perfect way to help your kids get good at counting, adding, and multiplying quickly.

Say you have a large jar full of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters. Have each child take a small pile of coins and separate the various sizes.

Once you have separated the coins, assign each child a specific coin (nickels, pennies, etc.) and have them count exactly how many there are in the jar.

Another way to go is let each child count the coins in their piles, add them up (50 nickels is $2.50, 40 quarters is $10, etc.) and then add their piles to the piles of the other people.

You can help your children learn how to count, but with real money that you can take to get them a nice little snack or surprise once you are done.


Tips for Teaching Kindergarten Math for Kids the Fun Way

Toy blocks with numbers on can become great counting tools for preschoolers.Kindergarten math is going to be a greater challenge than elementary school math, as the kids are going to be much younger. These kids won't have a very solid foundation in math, and they will just be learning to identify simple shapes, counting from 1 to 10, and other simple math problems.

They won't know how to count very high, and they may not even be able to count consecutively.

For those that are teaching kindergarten math for kids, it is going to be a bit difficult to come up with activities that will make it easy for your kids to make quick progress in their math.

To top it off, your kids are bound to have a very short attention span. Most preschoolers are only able to sit still for a short amount of time, and even then their attention is usually wandering. It can be quite the task to get the kids to not only sit still, but to pay attention to what you are saying and participate in the games that you are trying to play with them.

For those that are going to teach kindergarten math, my advice to you is to keep the games short, fun, and very simple. If a game goes on too long, your children will end up losing interest and will try to go on to something else.

Just make the games last a few minutes each before moving on to something else.

If the math games are fun, you will find that they will hold the children's interest for long enough to teach them something, and you can then go on to learning something else.


6 Preschool Math Activities

Here are some great preschool math activities that you can do to help give your children the foundation in mathematics:


Math Races

Math races aren't real races, but they are races that you will do on the whiteboard or a piece of paper.

Have each of the children take a colored marker and place it on a piece of paper that has a number of dots drawn on it.

Give each child a turn to say the number that you are pointing at, and they can then move forward that many spaces. Some kids can identify numbers up to 20 or 30, while others can only go as high as 10.

Make sure to give each child a chance to "win the race" according to their ability, and this math for kids game can help to improve their ability to both count and recognize numbers.


Mother may I is a great way to teach math for kids outside.Mother May I

Mother May I is a game where each child asks the mother if they can move forward, and they have to count the number of steps, jumps, or leaps that they move.

The kids obviously have to say "Mother May I" along with each motion, but the idea of the game is that the kids practice counting.

You can start off with commands like "5 normal steps" or "8 hops", and then you can move on to commands like "13 baby steps" or "16 frog jumps" that will help the kids to count higher.

This math game will be a great way for your kids to practice their counting skills, as they will have to count from one.


Simon Says

Simon Says is another fun game that you can play to help your kids learn counting, though it is normally focused on actions.

You can say, "Simon says to touch your nose 5 times," "Simon says to jump 8 times," and other simple commands.

Your kids will have to perform the actions a certain number of times, which will help them to practice their counting skills.


Fun math for kids: learning to count by counting minutes and hours on a clock.Clock Watching

Your kids may be too young to learn to tell the time, but they can at least learn how many minutes have passed between the big numbers on the clock. In fact, kids of preschool age can learn simple time telling, but it will be a bit of work to teach them.

If you want to teach them, explain how the little hand says the hour, the big hand says the minute, and give them the chance to try and figure it out.

Help them to learn, and you will find that with this math for kids activity they will often pick it up quite quickly.


Math Fishing

The traditional fish game can be turned into a fun math activity with paper and paper clips.This is a fun math activities game that you can play with your child's magnetic fishing set, though it will take a bit of work to customize the game.

Cut out a lot of numbers (between 1 and 20) and put paper clips on them. Use small pieces of paper with double-sided sticky tape on the back to stick numbers to the fish in the pond.

Each child takes a paper from the pile, uses the clip to stick it on their fishing line, and uses the magnet at the end of the line to pick up the fish that has the same number.

For teaching your kids number recognition skills, this is a great math game.


Connect the Dots

Connect the dots is a simple math for kids activity that any kids can do, provided they can draw lines from one dot to the next.

It will be a good follow up to coordination and art exercises, and can help your kids to learn to recognize numbers and count them in sequence.

You can go from 1 to 20, 1 to 30, or even 1 to 50 as the kids connect the dots and learn to count all the numbers.


5 Fun Math Activities for Older Kids

For your older kids, there are a lot of ways that you can customize games to be fun math activities for them.

Here are some fun math activities that you can play and do with your kids:


Chess or Checkers Counting

Fun math for kids: counting the moves of the chess pieces.If your kids know how to play chess, it is the perfect choice for this game. Checkers will do if they don't play chess.

Have the players count each of the moves they make, and add them up on a piece of paper.

For example, the horse moves 3 spaces every time, while the bishop can move between 1 and 7 spaces.

Have the kids tally up the moves of each piece, and even count up the moves of all the pieces.

Play a number of games and see who can win with the least spaces moved by all the pieces. It will be a challenge to do all the math, but it will be a fun way to compete to see who can make the least moves.


Cooking Fun

Just getting into the kitchen and cooking will help your kids lay multiplication math games, cool math games for kids involving fractions, and simple games of addition.

The tart has to be sliced into enough pieces for everyone, so how many pieces does it need to be cut into if there are 5 people eating?

The cake needs 2 eggs, but it needs 3 ¼ cups of flour, so how do you measure that?

The kitchen is a place where math is everything, and you will find that cooking a few meals with your kids can be a great way for them to practice their math skills.


Shopping Fun

Teaching kids math while doing the groceries is a great kind of math activity: Picture of coins, grocery list and basket.Taking your kids to the supermarket is probably the best way to help them practice their math skills with real life problems.

Give each of the kids a certain amount of money to work with from your weekly shopping budget, and give them a list of things that they need to buy.

They need to figure out how much they are going to spend, and what they can buy with the money that they have.

It may take a lot longer to do your shopping, but it will give your kids a chance to see what goes into making the purchases - something they will need to do when they get older - while also practicing their math skills in a real life situation.


Clock Watching

Counting the minutes on the clock can be a fun way to teach your kids about telling the time, but it can be a more advanced math activity for older kids.

Have each child write down the time they woke up, the time they brushed their teeth, used the bathroom, and all the other activities they did throughout the day.

Have them figure out exactly how many minutes passed between each activity, and how many minutes passed between their getting out of bed in the morning and the time they get into bed in the evening.

You can help them multiply the number of minutes by 60 to get an hour, or divide the number of hours by 60 to get minutes in the day.

It can be an amazing math tool, and all within just a single day.


Connect the Dots Older Kids Style

Connect the dots is usually seen as an activity for smaller kids, but you can play it through your whole house and make it a lot of fun.

You can have a treasure hunt running through the house, with threads leading all around the house to different math equations.

Your kids will have to do the math equations to find out which strings to follow on to the next destination, and they will all have to race to complete a certain number of equations to see who can reach the final destination of the prize first.

You can even leave the prize in plain sight, which can get each kid hurrying up to make the right calculations in order to reach the end of the line.

This math for kids activity will take a bit of preparation and creative thinking on your part, but it can be one of the most entertaining math games you can play with your kids.

Your Positive Parenting Ally,
Birgitte




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