Family Game Night Sculpts Math Abilities!
Family and friends gather together this time of year to eat, visit, eat, share, eat and have fun!
Roll the dice, land on Pennsylvania Avenue and count your money to see if you can buy the property! Monopoly and other math games may be teaching kids more than we know!
A study published in the journal Early Years shows that playing board games helps build
stronger math skills. Playing games is slowly becoming ‘extinct’ as they compete with video games and computers. Here at Calculating Minds, we have found that most students prefer to play board games instead of playing games online. Students don’t get the opportunity to play board games…. particularly with adults. So they jump at the chance to have fun with math while playing a game!
Researchers for Early Years reviewed 19 studies that looked at the individual impact of 25 games on learning. In about 32% of the games, kids saw a significant improvement in math ability compared with those who did not play them, the study showed.
The studies introduced games such as Dominoes, Chutes and Ladders, and The Great Race. The studies in the review used several different tests adopted in early education to measure things such as arithmetic speed and accuracy. Children playing about 52% of the games showed improvement in their math skills after playing them. Games are a fun, non-threatening means to practice math skills.
Thanksgiving, Christmas and other family get-together occasions is prime time to bust out the board games, connect with family AND practice math!
Go to our website for a list of suggested Math Board games — just in time for the holidays!
Great Games for a Family Math Night!
- Monopoly
- Prime Climb
- Proof!
- Times Tables Heroes
- Dominoes
- Chutes and Ladders
- Money Bags
- NumHunt
- Hi Ho Cheerio
- ADSUMUDI
- Pete the Cat
- Cool Cat Math Game
- Target!
- Sum Swamp
- Dino Math Tracks
- Clumsy Thief