10 Great Math Games For The Classroom

As part of the my continuing "meaningful(1) choice(2) time(3)" series, one of my stations will be a math game station. Here then are 10 math games for the classroom... in probably no particular order.

#10 Rummikub

Math Skills:
Combinations
Putting together and taking apart sets
Recoginizing missing elements of sets

How To Play:

Use tiles to make number sets- runs of a single number, or the same color. The goal is to clear your rack of numbers. 

#9 Pentominoes & Tangrams


Math Skills:

Spatial Reasoning

How To Play:

There are a lot of variations of Pentominoes. One way is place the pentominoes in the grid so each pentomino square covers one grid square and the shapes don't overlap. You may rotate and flip the shapes. The game is complete when the board is filled with pentominoes and has no empty spaces.

Tangrams can be used to make thousands of different figures. Here are some tangram challenges of possible figures to make. 




#8 Yahtzee
Math Skills:
Probability
Addition, Mental Math
Comparing Quantities

How To Play:
Players roll five dice to score points in 13 different cattegories.

#7 Othello

Math Skills:

Visualizing lines on a grid

Counting and comparing quantities

How To Play:
White on one side, black on the other, players take turns place a disk with their color on the board. Any of the opponent's disks that are sandwiched in a straight line between the newly-played piece and a disc showing the same color, are flipped to be claimed by the player.




#6 Qwirkle

Math Skills:
- Combinations and comparisons

How To Play:
Tiles are arranged in a crossword style. The "words" must have all the same color with no repeated shape, or all the same shape with no repeated color.








#5 Sumoku

Math Skills:
- Identifying Multiples

How To Play:
Tiles are arranged in a crossword style to be multiples of a key number. The key number is the number rolled on a die.




#4 Backgammon

Math Skills:
- Visualizing odds and percentages 

How To Play:

I can't figure out how to write a short description in a couple sentences. So here is how to play. 

#3 Mancala

Math Skills:
- Problem solving through visualizing future moves. 

How To Play:
A turn consists of removing all seeds from a pit, "sowing" the seeds (placing one in each of the following pits in sequence) and capturing the opponent's seeds. 




#2 Set

Math Skills:

- Matching Attributes

How To Play:
The object of the game is to identify a set of 3 cards from 12 placed face up on the table. 





#1 Blokus

Math Skills:
- Spatial Reasoning

How To Play:
Order of play is based on color, with blue going first, followed by yellow, red, and green. The first piece played of each color is placed in one of the board's four corners. Each new piece played must be placed so that it touches at least one piece of the same color, with only corner-to-corner contact allowed—edges cannot touch. However, edge-to-edge contact is allowed when two pieces of different color are involved.