SIMPLE MATH GAMES TO PLAY TOGETHER

Free printable games to play together with children to improve their maths skills.

There are so many simple hands-on games to play to improve your children's understanding of beginning math concepts. Perfect for learning at school or at home, these printable games need only one or two resources to play but will improve a young child's understanding of number.

With just some pencils, dice, blocks, you can be ready to play!

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As an Early Childhood teacher I know young children need plenty of practice before some maths concepts are understood. Over the past few years I've created some quick to set up maths resources and games that can easily be added to math centres for independent exploration or played in pairs by whole classes.

For the youngest children, I use this dice game to practice writing numbers.

Teaching the correct formation of numerals is sometimes forgotten in classrooms. We teach formal handwriting but don't always spend a lot of time on numbers. This printable 'Race to Trace' game is a fun way to practice handwriting whilst also learning to subitise and take turns if playing with someone else.

From there we working on building number sense.

These missing numeral cards have been ideal for children learning to count on and helps build their number recognition skills. Add magnetic numbers or create your own number counters like I have with some beach stones.

We start with numbers to 5 then to 10 then 20 then do the same with 100-charts or 120-charts. 

There are plenty of simple ways to work on quantity. 

Write down some numbers on some paper or post-its and ask your children to collect the correct number of objects to match.

Simple invitations like this are ideal for learning to recognise numbers and make amounts. We love using old loom bands (remember that craze from a few years ago) to build number and they're perfect for building up those small hand muscles.

Another fun way to strengthen fine motor skills is by using a hole punch.

I often use this sheet during our first year at school to match the number.

My teacher tip for this one is to teach your children early to put the glue on the paper not on their dot...

We use these 3-part number cards for sorting, matching, for display and for games. You can grab a FREE copy from here.

Introducing number bonds can be made simpler when visuals are used. Addition to ten is a good way to start exploring this with young children.

Ten frames are a helpful tool at this stage. Using maths tools like ten frames in the Early Years helps children organise their thinking.

Two coloured counters or flip blocks are a handy resource to have as they can be used for many different tasks like early addition or when teaching chance and probability.

You can create your own flip blocks from cardboard. Just glue two different colours pieces of paper on either side of the cards and then cut to suit.

Numicon is a favourite tool of mine. It's so visual and helps children 'see' numbers and how they work together. 

Here we paired them with our FREE Say It, Make It, Write It mats. You can find the mats here.

This game - In and Out is another fun way to explore number bonds. Here we used it to work on our rainbow facts to 10 but any number could be used.

You can grab all of the simple maths resources as one FREE download.

You can also grab our Place Value WAR printable for FREE too!

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