Fun Math For Kids: Books and Daily Play
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One of my kids loves math. This isn’t surprising, as I also love it. Calculus may have been my favorite subject in high school. There’s a part of me that misses math, and it brings me such joy to do math with my kids. I tell my older kid I’m going to borrow their calculus book and try to relearn along with them, and I’m only sort of joking.
For both my kids, I encourage math skills in our day to day, without making it feel like learning. Little stuff, like saying, “How many crackers do you have?” to work on counting; “if I gave you two more, how many would you have?” to introduce addition; and, “if you had to split your serving with you sibling, how many would you have for yourself?” for division. One of my kids especially enjoyed learning new ways to play with numbers. So I looked into ways we could do math at home, and that’s what you’ll find on this list. Make sure to check out the first part of my math resources, Fun Math for Kids: Games and Puzzles.
I originally wanted to call this list “resources for math-loving kids,” but then it occurred to me that these ideas may also work well for kids who don’t love math because it doesn’t come easily to them. While I don’t have any personal experience to back it up, I think these resources would be a great way to practice math with a kid who is having trouble with it in school.
Books
Math Kids by David Cole. These are great books that follow a group of kids who use math to solve mysteries. I said this in the Booklist for Kids section, but through reading these books, my kids learned about the Fibonacci sequence, Game Theory, factorials, and more. And their well written with good characters too- my kids actually wanted to read them.
Math Inspectors by David Kenney and Emily Boever. Similar concept to Math Kids; a math-loving group of kids solve mysteries.
A quick Google search showed me a TON of picture books that introduce math concepts to kids. None of them were familiar to me, so I’m not including any here since I prefer to recommend things I have experience with. I know I read books with my kids about counting, and probably encouraged simple math problems when relevant. Math is sneaky and can be found in many books if you look for it, and get in the habit of asking kids questions about the book. All that being said, consider searching for math specific picture books if your kids are young.
Math Through Play (And the Day-to-Day)
Just a quick note- when doing math spontaneously or within a non structured game, I’d recommend giving your kids a mix of problems that are easier (but not way below their level), moderate, and challenging. Start with the easier ones so your kid doesn’t get discouraged and decide they aren’t playing along with your attempts to have them add/make change/etc. Make sure you praise effusively, and work your way up to harder problems, with breaks in between.
Pretend games that involve shopping, or money. Buy a toy cash register (we have a Learning Resources one and it’s wonderful; it even allows you to do addition and subtraction on it) and toy money and get playing! Set up toys or clothes to look like a store, and take turns buying and ringing out the purchase. Make sure if you are the only buying the clothes, you create opportunities for your cashier-kid to make change. Recently, my kids played a game where they set up a hotel in our house. I encouraged them to charge me (the customer) for the room, food, and other amenities to see what they could earn.
Cooking/baking. When I homeschooled my kids for a year during the pandemic, I saw this recommendation all the time: “bake with your kids to teach math!” In reality, my kids were often too distracted by all the other parts of baking (can I stir now? Can I have some chocolate chips? When can we eat it?) that it wasn’t as beneficial as everyone said. But I do want to mention it because it is a great way to introduce the idea of fractions. I actually think I had a good conversation with my kid about fractions when we were getting out the measuring cups and spoons, and looking at what they said (1/3 cup, ½ cup, etc.), so maybe try that.
I do think using food in general is a great way to teach about math. In fact, when introducing the idea of division to my kid, I found it really clicked when I’d ask them to imagine cookies on a plate being divided into X groups. For instance, I’d say “for 10 divided by 2, think about taking 10 cookies on a plate and dividing them between two people, yourself and your sibling. How many would you each get?” I always use cookies, and it always seems to work!
Keeping score. If you and your kid/s are playing a game that involves throwing and catching, you could assign points for various actions (2 points for catching it, 5 points for catching it and doing a dance move, 8 points for catching it with one hand, etc.) and encourage them to keep score of how many points they get. You could even subtract points for dropping the ball, for example.
Playing school. One of my kids isn’t a huge fan of board games (dagger to my heart!), but they love playing school. Usually they are the teacher, and they often even use their own school work to teach to their stuffies (they did this completely on their own, not suggested by me). If I play with them, I may be a student and ask questions that encourage them to explain the math they are showing me. Maybe I’ll get the answer wrong, so they have to explain where I made the mistake. I may ask questions that push towards slightly more challenging math, like “that word problem says Joe has 20 apples and his son picks 10 more. But what if they do that everyday for a week? Then how many apples would they have?” If your kid lets you be the teacher, then you have more room to ask the math questions you want.
Sometimes when I am purging the house of old toys and clothes, I’d post things on Facebook marketplace to try and sell them. I’d involve my kids in this process by encouraging them to think of fair prices (though I was always the final decision because they often overshot what someone would pay). I could ask, “wow, if all of these books were bought, how much would we make?” As things were actually purchased, they could keep track of how much we earned. And when we had our final total, they could figure out how much we all made if we split it evenly, or if Mommy got a bigger percentage 😉
Telling time! This isn’t a game per se, just a reminder that there are many times during the day when you can sneak in a question involving time. At first, just asking young kids the time. Then, saying things like, “you can do videos for 30 minutes. It’s 4:05 now, so when will you need to be done?” Or, “Piano is at 5pm. We should leave 15 minutes before so we get there a couple minutes before it starts. So what time should we be ready to go?”