Playing Math Games

Today was a PJ day.  It was only going to reach a high of 50 degrees, and Big Dad had the car for a conference.  So we weren't going out today.  It was a great day to stay inside and make brownies.  My camera needs new batteries.  I promise to post pics once I've been to the store to buy batteries.

Jor Man asked me to play Monopoly, which we hadn't done recently.  He received Monopoly Here and Now for a gift a few years ago.  It's especially fun because there are famous US sights as the different properties, and the money is $10,000 to $5,000,000 instead of the classic $1 to $500.  Jor Man is able to handle these larger denominations.  I think it is great fun to work with these kind of big numbers.

Well, I beat him.  It was close.  I had to mortgage some properties at one point (which uses percentages, and teaches about interest).  But in the end, I got lucky and I won.

Other "math" games that are good for 10-year-olds include:

Yahtzee (great for multiplication)
Milles Bornes  (addition)
Cash Flow (teaches about passive income, lots of addition and subtraction on paper)
Set (higher level logic and grouping)
'Smath (all forms of computation)
Clue (Deduction)
Chocolate Fix (logic)
Battleship (graphing and deduction)
Mastermind (deduction)

Then Campster wanted a turn.  For her, I broke out our classic version of Monopoly.  Well, it's not entirely classic as it is in Spanish.  My mom thought it would be fun to play Monopoly in Spanish.  Yeah, not so much.  :)

But the Spanish isn't an issue for Campster since she is not reading yet at a level that would enable her to read the cards herself.  I chose the game with the smaller denominations of money, because Campster would not be able to handle the larger amounts.  That said, I was amazed by how much math she was able to do, in her head.

She has never been "taught" math.  We have counted, looked at calendars, sung songs and played games.  She has some Kumon workbooks about the numbers 1-120.  She has done dot-to-dots.  But we have never given her a math curriculum or intentionally covered addition or subtraction.  Yet, she was able to count out the money.  She was able to successfully count change.  She didn't always get it right - but her process of figuring it out was correct.

Playing Monopoly also is great practice for adding numbers up to 6 + 6.  Every roll of the dice is added up and counted out.  She desperately wanted me to land on certain spaces, and would count out how many I needed to roll to land there.  Say she wanted me to roll a 7.  She would say "God, please let Mom roll a 6 and a 1.  Or a 5 and a 2.  Or a 3 and a 4."  Awesome.

Oh, and I beat Campster too.  Ruthless!

Other games that are great for playing math with 7-year-olds include:

Phase Ten (sets and sequential numbers)
Guess Who (Introduces logical deduction)
War (greater than, less than)
Trouble (counting)

I didn't play Monopoly with Sher Bear.  She is too young for that.  We actually took a bath for our time together.  She was my home water birth and it shows.  But when I want to play games with her,  here are some math games to play with 4-year-olds:

Numbers Bingo (numeral recognition)
Chutes and Ladders (counting)

Here is a great website with more ideas for using games for homeschooling.  When I am introducing a new game to a child, I like to play one-on-one until they are confident about the game.  Trying to learn a new game while your older brother is trying to beat you is too distracting.  I grew up in Chicago, and we played games all winter long (when we weren't at school - LOL!).  I really enjoy playing games with my kids.

 Wish you were here!