Games in the Classroom

Student Post: Madison Keillor

Traditional board and card games can teach things with or without modifications. A lot of games can deal with probability as the game might be up to a roll of the dice and other games deal with simple addition often with multiple dice rolls so groups of 1-6 or adding scores over rounds. There is a game my family recently got that involves both addition and multiplication as you make “rivers” from one end to the other, each player or team trying to get the rivers to connect on two opposite ends (East and West or North and South). You add the places where the river comes on one end and multiply it by the other end to get your final score and thus this game could be used for students starting out with multiplication. Besides math-related games, memory could help young children with their memory and recognizing similarities and differences, and there are other themed games that could also help with other subject areas. There are surely more card and board games that can be used to help teach these early basic facts as well as opportunities for teachers to alter games to make it more education-based.

McVey adds: I found this single page of free games and templates you can use in your upper and lower elementary classrooms. https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/multiplication-games/