Summertime is my favorite time of year! I used to say this because it was when I got a much needed break after a long and tough school year – but now, my busiest months are June through August and I love every minute of it! I love it so much because it’s usually the time when I get to spend quality time with my students developing skills they need to improve or catch up on, and we don’t have to worry so much about keeping up with skills being taught at school. We can really take a step back and develop good number sense and practice skills necessary for the coming year. I spend a lot of time and effort to make tutoring as fun as possible with games and cool activities – and summertime is no exception. However, I was running out of ideas for new and innovative educational games to play with my students. What could I do to make summer tutoring fun for my students? I could go out to some of those teacher stores and buy some new games…but those things ain’t cheap! Uh…light bulb moment! Have the kids make their own math games as part of their summer activity!
So that’s exactly what we did. Initially I thought it would not only be fun and educational to play the games together, but it would be fun and educational to actually MAKE the games. To my wonderful surprise, I discovered that my students were not only learning math concepts, but they were also developing real world problem solving skills, time management techniques, hands-on production skills, and most importantly, the feeling of pride and accomplishment once their game was finished – especially when they heard that others had played their game and loved it!
Here are a few photos of me playing these home-made math games with my students. These are all kid-created. I coached a little on things like making sure the fabrication of the game was practical, length of game play was appropriate, and that all players would be actively practicing the skill that was chosen, and a few of the kids’ parents helped with cutting, printing, etc. (thank you!) – but these games are 100% my students’ ideas and creations! Enjoy!
-Go Green Multiplication-
Much like war – but your product must be closest to the blue “target number” rather than just the highest. (She hand drew and colored all of those cards!)
Multiplication and comparison of numbers in one game!
-‘Mine’craft Fractions-
Another game similar to ‘War’ in that players look for the largest fraction – however, the winner of each round picks up a ‘resource’ from the center pile, then at the end, each player tallies their score to reveal the winner!
We had a triple war!
-Baseball Multiplication-
Each player flips 2 cards and multiplies the number on them. Your product determines how your ‘players’ move around the diamond!
Batter up!
-Go Pigs!-
Kinda like ‘Go Fish’, but instead of pairs, players try to collect enough fraction pieces to make a whole. (Another artist – hand drew all of those adorable pigs!)
The battle of fractions is on!
No peeking!