- "online" means "interactive",
- "interactive" means "fun", and
- "fun" means "learning".
No matter what game a kid plays, if it's fun, they'll learn. They'll practice the skills the game requires. They'll commit to memory the information needed to win.
This being the case, surely it's best for a loving parent or teacher (such as yourself) to guide the games a student plays?
The whole purpose of this site is to make it easy for you to find "math games" for kids. Games where the skills and information needed are mathematical in nature.
This page collects together some of the best online math games I've discovered. Math games that combine graphics, sound and the power of the web to provide an interactive learning experience that your kids will call "plain old fun".
First, though, let me mention the interactive online math games found on this site itself. Please bear with me for a short while...
- This Angle Geometry Quiz tests your knowledge of a few facts relating to angles. Race against the clock as you prove your skills! Topics covered include the interior angles of triangles and quadrilaterals, angles near parallel lines, lines meeting at a point and others.
- Feel like something different? A break from the normal pen-and-paper routine? Try Mathteroids, the math asteroid game or the other interactive games on this site.
- The six different Fractions Quizzes on this site are like an online version of Flashcard Stepping Stones. Choose your fractions topic, then choose which of 3 characters (a pegasus, a clownfish or a rocket) you will help! Then, answer a series of fractions questions until you reach the goal. The further they progress, the more challenging the questions become!
- MathGolf is played on the computer, and the high scores for each month are recorded on the website. However, as the tips for parents and teachers explains, your children will do better if they spend time away from the computer with a pencil and paper, before coming back to the computer to enter their play.
- Mastermind is a classic game of logical deduction. The first player selects a secret code. The second player tries to guess that code. After each guess, the first player gives clues about how well the second player did - how many digits (or pegs or marbles) in the code are correct, and how many are the right color but the wrong place. In this online version of mastermind, you can pit your wits against the task of finding the computer's secret code, or select your own secret code, and challenge the computer to guess it.
- In the Math Architect Online Game the goal is to design an apartment with the given area. The catch? Each room is a square, and you must have as few rooms as possible! This makes the game challenging enough to keep kids occupied, and deep enough to keep them learning as they play. There is also a high scores table showing the best players each month, year and for all time.
- Math Frozen Bubble is an online interactive bubble buster game that also helps kids practice their arithmetic. Good for grade 4 and up.
- Math Lines is like 'Zuma' with a math twist. A twisty row of colorful numbered marbles winds its way across the screen. If they get too far, that's the end of the game. Blast away with marbles of your own, and if you join two marbles that add to 10, they'll explode and give you more time to win. Can you make it to the next level?
- In Math Pathways you do a sequence of arithmetic sums, over and over on different numbers, and this shows you the way across a grid of numbered balls. In the hardest level, you aren't even told what sums you need to do, but have to figure this out from the numbers in the grid!
- This money counting memory game allows kids from the United States, UK, Australia, the EU and Singapore to practice counting money in a familiar game
- This Weekly Puzzle Google Gadget will show you a new math puzzle every week. If you don't want to visit the web page each week, you can put the gadget on your own web page, or on your personalized google start page.
- Sliding Block Puzzles are a very broad group of puzzles. This pages explores some simple ones, with questions about what makes a certain puzzle solvable. There's also a java applet allowing people to play with the puzzles mentione don the page.
- Is your child artistically inclined? Try him or her on this Spirograph Applet. As they enjoy themselves making swirly whirly designs, they are actually picking up some math too.
- Squink is a Brain Puzzle where players have to find the squares in a pattern on a grid, and count how many squares surround each location. There are two ways to play - you can count the squares in the pattern shown, or you can find a pattern to produce the counts shown. You can also design patterns of squares and share them with your friends!
Now for the best online interactive math games on other sites. I must admit, I've only found two so far that really captured my heart from the start.
- The Lemonade Stand leads a child in a lemonade selling adventure! The player must make decisions about how much of each ingredient to buy, and what price to set for a cup of lemonade. Sales depend on the weather, of course. Kids will learn a whole gamut of skills, from basic money skills(arithmetic), through to economics concepts (price versus demand).
- Ghost Blasters is the second game I found that is really worth drawing your attention to! Blast away at "unfriendly" ghosts - how do you tell which ghosts are unfriendly? By the number they wear!
As I said, Lemonade Stand and Ghost Blasters are the only math games I've found so far that really captures the best of what the web can do. However, so as not to leave this page too empty, let me give you a couple more links.
- Yahoo games has a bunch of puzzle games, mostly no more mathematical than any other puzzle game. At least Twistingo will give a kid practice recognising numbers quickly.
- Prongo has a nice two-player addition challenge. It's more fun than a plain old worksheet, I guess.
Well, that's all for now. I hope I can expand this list of interactive online math games soon!
Yours, Dr Mike...
Games