Elementary Math Online Games Roundup Part 2: Multiplication, Fractions, 24

Love math 1Image via Wikipedia
This week, I went back to the web for some interactive math games, and although this may sound like a direct advertisement, I was able to find some great material through the site that I visited and wrote about last week, Math Playground. Specifically, I discovered additional activities when I needed an alternative to a simple worksheet or problem set.  So, here’s another roundup of a few elementary math games.


Catching Multiples
Last week, my tutoring student encountered Greatest Common Factors and Least Common Multiples for the first time. As can be imagined, she experienced some difficulties retaining and understanding beyond the basic concepts. I wanted to reinforce the rote multiplication work that we’ve been engaging in with the flashcards and repetition. Yet, I wanted to tie this to our new knowledge of multiples. The name of the game was Catching Multiples, and the objective was simple: catch all of the multiples of a selected number (my student needed work on “8”s) and avoid all of the non-multiples. I love that you can choose the number to work on, and the game needs no additional explanations. One downside was that I felt the multiples were coming in a bit too fast, as my student occasionally had trouble positioning the catcher in time.
 
Fraction Equivalents
Fractions are often a tough concept in the beginning for many students. I found that it was best to include visuals as often as possible to illustrate the part-to-whole relationship of fractions. Once we had the basics of what fractions were, there was the next step of tackling equivalents. I liked the game Fraction Equivalents, as this was a great way to have the student sort several pictures, simplified and non-simplified fractions into three separate circles. This allowed some guess/check space for the student and gave my particular student an opportunity to be wrong yet still learn from her mistakes. It was nice that she was able to proceed at her own pace and after completing the third level, she felt extremely proud of her accomplishments.

24 game
When I was in grade school, my teacher Mrs. K introduced us to a game called Krypto. The game involved 5 cards, a sixth card called the “Krypto” card, and the goal was to use each card once along with any mathematical operation in order to obtain the Krypto card. A variation on this game came out later called “24”, and I found a Smart Notebook lesson as well as a Flash game online that featured the same principles. Although I will always be partial to Krypto, I enjoy playing 24 with my student, and she seems to be improving with her mental math (we don’t allow pen/paper during our games), as she is getting quicker at coming up with solutions. The game is also very versatile as you don’t need any special equipment. When I taught math in the classroom, I would just ask for 5 random numbers plus a “Krypto” number, and we had ourselves an instant puzzler.  
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Comments

Michelle said…
There are two other great sites for elementary math that I use.

One is www.2plus1family.ca - it is a site for parents who are looking to support their children's math education by providing great ideas and thoughts on the subject.

The second is www.dreamboxlearning.com which is award winning online software where the children play math adventure games that progress with the children's ability level. The nice thing about this site is that there is parental tracking so you can monitor you child's understanding ad progression.

Both are A+ in mt books!

Hope this helps!
chanatown said…
Michelle,
Thanks for the recommendations. I'll be sure to take a look at these when prepping for my next lesson.
Best,
David
Is your district using Hooda Math yet? All the math games are completely free and differentiated for all grade levels.

Cheers,

Michael Edlavitch

Math Teacher and Creator of HoodaMath.com
chanatown said…
Hi Michael,

Thanks for writing. I actually have used Hooda Math in some of my lessons, so I can attest that it's a quality site. My next roundup will include some of the games featured on your site.

Best,
David

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