Card Decks (if you don’t have dice):
Subitizing Games:
Add and Count–more subitizing and adding practice (from Sandra Ball’s Starting with the Beginning)
Roll them all! Rolling two dice and adding to find the sum (from Sandra Ball’s Starting with the Beginning)
That’s Dicey!–a subitizing practice game (from Carol Fullerton’s Mathematical Thinking)
Find it! —another subitizing practice game (from Carol Fullerton’s Mathematical Thinking)
One More and One Less
One More! Practicing the number sense skill of determining one more than what is rolled. Can be easily adapted to practice “one less” as well (from Sandra Ball’s Starting with the Beginning)
One More or Less Game: This is a different version of the game above. It includes 2 game boards: one that uses only one dice and one that uses two! It is also designed for one more and one less.
Games for Making 5, 10, and numbers up to 20:
Fabulous Five Worm—practice making fives (from Sandra Ball’s Starting with the Beginning)
Terrific Ten Snake—practice making tens (from Sandra Ball’s Starting with the Beginning)
Make 10–practice making tens (from Sandra Ball’s Starting with the Beginning)
Make 10 or 20–practice those benchmarks of 10 and 20 with this simple card game
Ten Frame Flash (from Manitoba Education and Youth)
Ten! (from Manitoba Education and Youth)
How many ways can you add to 10? (from Games for Young Minds)
Pig–a game of counting, adding, and taking chances!
Games for Practicing Decomposing or Part-Part-Whole:
What’s in the cup? We recommend five frames (printout: Five Frames) be available for students as they play this game.
Games for Number Sense to 100:
Fill the Stairs (from Math for Love)
Empty Chart Games (easy and effective!)
Garbage (Number sense to 10 from Games for Young Minds)
Number Scavenger Hunt (Number sense to 20 from Games for Young Minds)
Number Grid Tic-Tac-Toe (Number sense to 100 and beyond from Games for Young Minds)
Games for Doubling:
Capture the Square doubles adding—(practicing doubles and doubles plus or minus 1)
Advanced Doubles Game–for grade 3 and up
Double or Half?–A challenging target game using the skills of doubling and halving numbers from Nrich Maths
Games for Bridging to Tens
King of the Castle–Find the missing addend to become the king of the castle!
Island Hopping–a game for practicing “get to a ten, then add the rest” (bridging to 10). This requires a confidence with decomposing numbers and “making ten” facts.
The Hundred Chart Game–A great, adaptable game from Math for Love.
Top dog adds–tackling all the adding facts between 0 and 18. A good game for grade 3, once all key strategies have been learned.
Games for Adding Friendly Tens and Friendly Ten Doubles
Treasure Box Level 1–adding up to 20
Treasure Box Level 2–adding up to 200
Treasure Box Level 3–adding up to 2000
Capture the Square Doubles and Friendly 10 Doubles
Games for Subtracting:
Lucky Ducky (from Carol Fullerton’s Mathematical Thinking )
Capture the Square-subtracting
top dog finds the difference up to 10
top dog finds the difference up to 20
top dog subtracts friendly tens
Diffy–a great game for practicing finding the difference and also an intriguing puzzle.
Adaptable Games for a Range of Fact Fluency Practice:
Go Fish, Concentration and War (“evergreen games” you can adapt to practice math facts)
Diffy (a fun, adaptable math puzzle for students to work on in pairs or individually). View this video for instructions.