Easy Games to Develop Number Sense

Kids love math games. After the peek at my week, I share several math games that help to develop number sense--at the conceptual level!

I didn’t do a Peek at My Week last week….we had fall break!  So, I’m back this week to finish up our unit on Food. 

Last year we did a book study on “Worksheet Don’t Grow Dendrites.” It was a great reminder of all the things we did that were truly developing brain power! Splatter Guards, from the dollar store, make great puppets! The kids loved acting out the song “Five Little Chefs”. Why did we do it?

• It teaches concepts of print.
• It teaches words, letters, sentences.
• It teaches number combinations.
• It teaches counting on.
• It teaches….
• But most important…it grows brain power, the kids love it! They remember it! They know those combinations!

We are working on our phonemic awareness skills.  First we practiced it in large group…then, I can do it as a center or if they aren’t quite ready, I can do it in small group. (This is from the food unit. Link below)

Lots going on in math!

Love these math attack games! It is a super easy way to DI for number. Each child has a card that tells them what to do. It looks like this….We glue them to the front of a library pocket. The pocket is great for holding their cards.

Then, they spread out their cards and do whatever task is on their card!
If you want to read more about them, go here for another blog post with more details.

Love this pizza game….Here’s how you play…

• Give each child a game board and some pepperoni.
• Roll a dice and invite the children to count that many pieces of pepperoni onto their game board.
• Roll the dice again. How can you make your pizza have that many pieces? Do you need to take some off? Do you need to add some? How did you figure it out?
• For example, if they have 5 pepperoni pieces on their game board and they roll a 3, they will need to take 2 off. If they roll a 6, they will need to add a piece of pepperoni.

It’s a great game for teaching where numbers are in relation to each other, counting on, counting backwards.

We are moving right along on our number study. Each week for one of the math mini lessons, we focus on a given number. We tell everything we know about that number. Then, the following week, the kids record it in their math journal as a have to center, or they can do it right along with you.

We are moving right along in our DI math units.  This is one of the activities from unit 2. Here is the scripted lesson that we use. See the bottom of the plan? One plan…all 3 groups!
Here’s how to play…

 

This activity, from our Food unit, is a great little assessment to see if children understand how many more they need to make 5. They spin the spinner, put that many gumballs on the fives frame, and then see how many more they need to make a 5.               

Here are the units that I used to plan for this week.