If you are a parent or teacher of pre-school children, and if you are looking for games to build up their math, you've come to the right place. At the bottom of this page are links to several games designed to help a pre-school child grasp basic math concepts. Read on!
Kindergarten kids learn by experience
Not by rote learning! Think about your own understanding of real basic math. One favorite question I hear is this : Why does two and two make four? Of course, there's a technical high-falutin' answer that only math professors could be bothered with. But for everyone else? It just does! There's no why about it!
I asked my little tyke a similar question the other day. He's been going to kindergarten for almost a year now. His kindergarten aims not just to teach kids to recite numbers, but to give the little angels a true sense of what numbers mean. Wanting to see how well Melvin's teachers had done, I tested him.
"Daddy, what's a pair?"
That was the question that gave the opportunity. I told him a pair was two of something. Then I asked him :
"So, if you had two pairs, how many would you have?"
After thinking for a moment, he gave the answer : "Four!"
Multiplication! And from a kid who's barely four years old! So I asked him another question.
"If you had three pairs of train tickets, how many train tickets would you have?"
"Six!"
"That's right! But why is it six?"
I was hoping for some deep insight into his mental genius, some gem of inspiration I could share with the world. Then he replied...
"Because you have six trains, and six buses, and six trains!"
So much for gems of inspiration!
Intuitive Knowledge
Later it occurred to me - my little Melvin probably found the question as strange as adults do. I imagine him thinking, why is it six?? It just is, daddy! Like Melvin, none of us learned numbers by rote or logic. Instead, we learned them by repeated exposure. We see six things. We are told it is six. This happens again and again, and over time, we somehow unconsciously come to "know" what six means. All at kindergarten age.
Of course, pre-primary children can be taught math. However, it's best to cooperate with nature's way, and find ways to expose them to number through daily life, or through fun and games.
I've provided, on this site, a bunch of free printable kindergarten math games. Whether you are a teacher or a parent, they will help give the children you love this repetitive exposure to number, arithmetic, size, and other math concepts. All are free, and some need little more preparation than clicking "print". If this is what you have been looking for, well, the pleasure is mine...
- Do you have a group of kindy kids struggling to remember addition sums up to 10? Try this math board game on them. You'll need to do some printing and cutting first, and find a die (dice) and some playing pieces.
- Not exactly a game, but certainly a useful tool for teaching kids addition and subtraction facts - either actively through memory exercises, or passively through osmosis! These addition and subtraction tables and charts are free, and ready for you to print and use.
- There's enough Addition and Subtraction Worksheets here to last a month of Mondays, including one special one, carefully designed to teach the important links between addition and subtraction.
- An Advent Calendar, besides being a great Christmas tradition, helps teach younger kids counting and calendars in a fun, exciting way. Download and print this free advent calendar, make up up with a trimmer and glue, and enjoy the Christmas countdown with your child.
- I've uploaded Counting Worksheets and Math Worksheets to help the pre-school children in your care to practice reading numbers, counting, and similar. Practice makes perfect, in a loving, encouraging environment!
- Fish Plus One is a game with simple rules, for teaching addition facts such as 3+1=4. It can be played with a normal set of playing cards, or UNO cards. Once kids have mastered adding 1 to numbers, you can move them on to Fish Plus Two, Fish Plus Three... or maybe even Fish Plus Plus!
- "Get into Groups Of... five minus two!" This game is a great game for younger children - because it involves lots of running around! Good for kindy kids, also for 1st and 2nd graders. The page shows how to vary the rules to make it interesting for older children too.
- Here's a fun game that is almost guaranteed to make your kids love math, particularly addition. They'll love it for one simple reason - food! To play the game, you only need a printout of the colorful picture provided (there's also a black-and-white version), and a supply of small yummy snacks. Sultanas worked best for my son. Full instructions, and tips on how to avoid behavior pitfalls, are provided.
- If the Kindergarten Addition Game worked well for the kids you care for, the Kindergarten Subtraction Game is a natural follow-on. Subtraction becomes fun as happy bees feed a hungry hippo!
- Sometimes a bit of practice helps. The worksheets on this page give a child practice both counting and recognizing printed numbers. The kid is supposed to read a printed number, then draw the correct number of objects in the space provided.
- This page has a link to a file you can print onto cardboard and cut out, to make a great toy for learning number and arithmetic. It's a set of blocks - or at least, the closest I could get to a set of blocks printed on cardboard. The page also suggests a number of games you can teach a child to help them get the most out of the game. You'll need a color printer.
- Math is not just about number. On this page I've provided a printable version of a toy my mom gave me as a child. It's a collection of tiles of different shapes, sizes and colors. The page also gives suggestions for how you might use them to benefit your kid or kids. You'll need a color printer.
Well, that's all for now. But bookmark this page, and check back once in a while! I hope to add more and more free kindergarten math games to this page as time goes by!
Yours, Dr Mike.
Games