Rachel Crozier

ED 447: Learning Mathematics in the Elementary Classroom

Collection of 10 Math Games

This collection of math games for the Elementary Classroom is ordered by ability and/or
grade level. The first are for younger children, while the latter games are directed for older
children. They cover a variety of skill sets, are not designated for one grade levels common core
standards in particular, and are highly differentiable and adaptable. I would use these games
across many grade levels, depending on the ability of my students, but use the easier games to
reinforce old skills. Some of the more difficult games can be made easy by adjusting the
problem sets used. This collection was put together with the intention of covering all the grade
levels and skills; I chose games that targeted main skill sets in each grade. These games, because
they cover a variety of skills, are also adaptable within each grade to cover more than one skill. I
thought this would be a better option to making a cohesive collection of one grades games. In
order of grade and difficulty, here are the 10 math games.
1. Adding Go-Round
2. Cuisenaire Rods
3. Add Up the Dice
4. Who Has?
5. Time Barriers
6. Triangle Flash
7. Fraction Dominoes
8. Area Fills
9. Entrapment
10. PEMDAS Board Game

Adding Go-Round
Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.2.NBT.B.5
Fluently add and subtract within 100 using strategies based on place value, properties of
operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction.
Materials:

Player game-board
Two game pieces, like coins or place markers
Whiteboards
Dry erase markers (for doing addition work)

Directions: Included on attached player game-board.

Ongoing Practice and Differentiation:
This simple addition round-about board game is to be played with two students, each
taking a turn to complete the addition problem. This game is easily taken home, to be played
with a parent, or played at a math center or during a rotation of math games. To make this game
more engaging and to ensure students are constantly learning as they play, they can participate in
making their own addition board with a partner by simply writing their own addition or
subtraction equations and placing the answers on the outside of the board. Students can then
play their own games with one another. Another means of differentiation is for the teacher to
design addition problems that closely reinforce the skills taught that day, or the specific addition
abilities that need to be known. By whiting out the addition problems and answers currently on
the board, and re-writing her own for more than one set of student abilities, the teacher can
monitor which students are capable of which problem sets.

Cuisenaire Rods
Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.OA.C.7
Fluently multiply and divide within 100, using strategies such as the relationship between
multiplication and division (e.g., knowing that 8 5 = 40, one knows 40 5 = 8) or properties of
operations. By the end of Grade 3, know from memory all products of two one-digit numbers.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.OA.A.3
Use multiplication and division within 100 to solve word problems in situations involving equal
groups, arrays, and measurement quantities, e.g., by using drawings and equations with a symbol
for the unknown number to represent the problem.1
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.MD.C.7.A
Find the area of a rectangle with whole-number side lengths by tiling it, and show that the area is
the same as would be found by multiplying the side lengths.
Materials:

Cuisenaire Rods one set per student

Two Dice per student pair
Cm Grid Paper for each student
Crayons

Directions: Included on attached Cuisenaire Rectangles directional sheet.

Ongoing Practice and Differentiation:
Cuisenaire Rods are highly differentiable, as this game proves. This game is meant for
third graders who are learning to multiply within base 10. Students need fine motor skills and
minimal multiplication prior knowledge in order to participate in this game. Students who are
beginning to work on multiplication those who are still counting squares to find the area of the
grid to those who are closer to automatic multiplication fact recitation, will all feel competent
and have a more complete understanding of multiplication. This game can be differentiated
between grades as well; instead of multiplying the two numbers rolled on the dice, students
might be instructed to draw and add the Cuisenaire Rods with those values, and to show the
addition equation. Likewise, this game can be changed to a subtraction game in which students
subtract the two numbers rolled on the dice, and show the overlapping rods which complete the
equation. Throughout the grades, students can use these to explore measures of cm, and to
practice showing an answer thats followed by a concrete unit of measure. Students can practice
(with a set of cut-out and pasted onto cardboard) their addition, subtraction, and multiplication
equations at home and play these grid games with their parents.

Add Up the Dice

Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.1.OA.C.6
Add and subtract within 20, demonstrating fluency for addition and subtraction within 10. Use
strategies such as counting on; making ten (e.g., 8 + 6 = 8 + 2 + 4 = 10 + 4 = 14); decomposing a
number leading to a ten (e.g., 13 - 4 = 13 - 3 - 1 = 10 - 1 = 9); using the relationship between
addition and subtraction (e.g., knowing that 8 + 4 = 12, one knows 12 - 8 = 4); and creating
equivalent but easier or known sums (e.g., adding 6 + 7 by creating the known equivalent 6 + 6 +
1 = 12 + 1 = 13).
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.2.MD.C.8
Solve word problems involving dollar bills, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, using $ and
symbols appropriately. Example: If you have 2 dimes and 3 pennies, how many cents do you
have?
Materials:

Add Up the Dice Counting Coins template

Plastic or Metal coins
Whiteboard/dry erase markers

Directions:
1. Cut out both dice, folding on the borders and taping the ends together.
2. Take turns rolling your set of dice. Find the coins that you rolled in your set of
plastic/metal coins, and pull them into your own pot your working space, or your coin
cup (teacher can decide how to do this.)
3. Count the coins that you rolled, and add them all together using whiteboards and markers.
4. Write the total on the worksheet.
5. At the end, when students have taken multiple turns to roll the dice, collect their money,
and find the total amount of each turn, students can try to add together their total money
won and see who won.
Ongoing Practice and Differentiation:
This dice game is easily differentiated among grade levels, and within a class of singlegrade students. Students with excess fine motor difficulties are aided by the tangible coins
available, and the whiteboard/marker use for adding. Also within a class, students can use a
100s chart for adding. For students who need extra time, the coins on one die should be used to
count and locate the value. Among different grades students can multiply or subtract instead of
add, create fractions in which the first dice is the numerator and the second is the denominator,

and students have to write the fraction as their answer. It can become a home-school connection
when students bring home a set of dice, and parents are encouraged to roll the dice along with
their children. Students can also practice verbal understanding of the number relationships by
making stories for the numbers and how the value of the coins combines in the addition or other
math problem.

Who Has?
Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.NBT.A.3
Multiply one-digit whole numbers by multiples of 10 in the range 10-90 (e.g., 9 80, 5 60)
using strategies based on place value and properties of operations.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.OA.B.5
Apply properties of operations as strategies to multiply and divide.2 Examples: If 6 4 = 24 is
known, then 4 6 = 24 is also known.
Materials:

Who Has? Cards

Directions: Included on the Who Has? directional sheet attached.

Ongoing Practice and Differentiation:
In order to differentiate this game, and make it accessible to students who take more time
understanding multiplication facts and the concepts behind multiplication, all students playing
can begin the few games (first few weeks of school) with manipulatives or area grids. Instead of
two students merely searching for the right answer in their collection of cards, they can both
practice a certain taught method of multiplication before establishing right answer. From there,
they can search their collections of Who Has? cards. This game requires that all students
actively find the answers to each multiplication question, because none of the students know
where the correct answer is unless they all correctly determine and search their own piles of
cards. This game can be played with a large group, in which each student has a card and greets
the other student in their class with the answer to their problem. Students can use multiplication
charts as well. Another large group version of this game might be for students to put themselves
in order of cards with questions and answers, so that all the students end up in a line with the
person on either side of them having either the question or the answers needed to their own card.
Students can make their own sets of cards, teachers can create sets based on the levels of
multiplication needed to be known, and teachers can make more difficult questions and answers.

Time Barriers
Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.1.MD.B.3
Tell and write time in hours and half-hours using analog and digital clocks.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.2.MD.C.7
Tell and write time from analog and digital clocks to the nearest five minutes, using a.m. and
p.m.
Materials:

Time Barrier Game Analog Clock template

Large Book or Folder as a divider
Plastic clock with movable hands (for help)

Directions: Included in Time Barrier Game instructions.

Ongoing Practice and Differentiation:
This time game may appear to seem mono-ability, but it is easily differentiable. Students
can be instructed to use only whole hour times, such as 11:00, or they can be instructed to use
whatever time concepts and vocabulary was just taught to them. For example, if they are
learning the concepts of quarter to and quarter after etc. they would write these values into
their clocks and talk about them to lead their partner to this understanding. In order to assist
students in their talk about time and interpreting a clock, a teacher can place pictures of various
clocks in the front of the classroom preferably the clocks just discussed. Students can use this
game as a stepping stone into a longer project of designing their own daily schedule, in which
they might realign the chronology of their school day into the most desired day. Students might
use this battleship-esque game to test a partners understanding of clocks and the talk involved in
interpreting clock hands. In order to make this game more difficult, for students who already
have a concrete grasp of analog clocks, a teacher might ask students to describe the time that
they do something during their day such as eating breakfast and have partners write the
correct time and the am/pm accompaniment. This would increase student awareness of time in
their own day and life, and to presume the commonalities between their lives and the lives of
their fellow students. This would allow for discussion between students, parents, teachers, and
whole school communities.

Triangle Flash
Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.OA.B.5
Apply properties of operations as strategies to multiply and divide.2 Examples: If 6 4 = 24 is
known, then 4 6 = 24 is also known.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.OA.A.4
Determine the unknown whole number in a multiplication or
division equation relating three whole numbers. For example,
determine the unknown number that makes the equation true in
each of the equations 8 ? = 48, 5 = _ 3, 6 6 = ?
Materials:

Index Cards
Scissors
Markers

Directions:
1. To make the flash cards, cut each index cards into a triangle. In the corners of the flash
cards write numbers belonging to a multiplication/division fact. For example, if you
write 63 at the top of the triangle, you would then write 7 in one corner and 9 in another.
Make all flash cards with the same number family sets.
2. To play the game, sets of students take turns holding up a card, covering one number.
The other student needs to identify the missing number, using multiplication to find the
covered product, or division to find the covered factor.
3. Keep track of which index cards are easy and which one are difficult to remember.
Students can keep a pile of the ones they know and the ones they dont by writing down
the fact, and practicing them later.
Ongoing Practice and Differentiation:
Students playing Triangle Flash are learning the inverse relationship between
multiplication and division; when they observe a product and a factor they need to divide to find
the other factor. This game should both reinforce the multiplication sets that students are actively
practicing, and the sets that they have already mastered. This idea of multiplication and
divisions inverse connection is a concept that all students need to understand long into their
middle and high school math. In order to establish an ongoing practice that will continue long

into their math lives, a teacher can allow students to begin this practice with multiplication
boards or other tools. Memory does not come easily for students, but concepts do, so the first
step that teachers need to give their students is a sense of accomplishment and ability. Once
students feel accomplished from their efforts, they are more motivated to learn something in a
quick way.

Fraction Dominoes
Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.4.NF.A.1
Explain why a fraction a/b is equivalent to a fraction (n a)/(n b) by using visual fraction
models, with attention to how the number and size of the parts differ even though the two
fractions themselves are the same size. Use this principle to recognize and generate equivalent
fractions.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.G.A.2
Partition shapes into parts with equal areas. Express the area of each part as a unit fraction of the
whole. For example, partition a shape into 4 parts with equal area, and describe the area of
each part as 1/4 of the area of the shape.
Materials:

Fraction Domino templates, glued onto cardboard and cut out

Directions: Included on the Fraction Dominoes, and re-written here

1. Place all Fraction Dominoes face down, and shuffle them. Each player takes 7. The
player with the highest fraction, or fraction closest to 1 (a whole) or highest denominator,
goes first.
2. Going in a circle, each player takes a turn matching one of his dominoes to another free
end of the dominoes already connected. Numeral and circle fractions can touch, as long
as they are equivalent (this rule can be adjusted for differentiation). If a player has no
dominoes that he can play, he must take one from the flipped over pile.
3. First player to use all of his dominoes is the winner.
Ongoing Practice and Differentiation:
Fraction Dominoes can become a game that students play throughout the year with other
new numeral values and picture equivalents. As of third grade, when students are first
introduced to fractions and the concept of something being less than 1 that 1 itself can be
broken up into parts just like a number greater than 1 can be broken up into parts this game
can be used as a math talk encourager. Students might be taught to explain the value of each of
their domino sides, and prove with each turn why the two numeral/circle values are equivalent.
For example, they might have to draw a fraction on a grid, and show how a partially shaded area
on a grid is the same as a shaded circle. On the other hand, as students become increasingly
aware of the fraction equivalent values, and the relationships between circles as 1 and
numerators and denominators, this game can change in difficulty too. The next step of this game

would be for students to add together the fractions that they combine, or multiply, or compare
fractions. Comparing the free ends to other free ends created by the students would help them
create a sense of number lineage and logical continuation between 1 and 0. Students can write
their values on a number as they play the game, and the winner might be the student to have the
most values on a number line correct.

Area Fills
Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.2.G.A.2
Partition a rectangle into rows and columns of same-size squares and count to find the total
number of them.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.MD.C.7
Relate area to the operations of multiplication and addition.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.MD.C.7.A
Find the area of a rectangle with whole-number side lengths by tiling it, and show that the area is
the same as would be found by multiplying the side lengths.
Materials:

Graph Paper
Colored Pencils
Two 10-sided Dice

Directions: Included in attached Area Game Directions for teachers second page.
Ongoing Practice and Differentiation:
This game is perfect for ongoing practice and differentiation because it encourages
students to see multiplication visually and holistically. Like the Cuisenaire Rods, which provide
the basis for multiplication and addition on graph paper, Area Fills helps students connect the
spatial relationship between factors, lengths and widths, the concept of a product being an area of
space, and the idea that greater products mean a greater amount of space is taken up. For this
game to be differentiated, teachers across grade levels can make it as competitive as they see fit
for their classroom atmosphere. Some students will excel under a more competitive atmosphere,
while others might prefer a one-on-one casual environment. This means that the teacher may
lead this activity, treating it like Bingo and the first person to fill their board wins. Another way
that the teacher might play this game with the students is to give them the ability to use all the
multiplication facts theyve learned up through a certain number (all the 7s multiplication, or all
the 2s, 3s, and 4s). She might give extra credit to students who are able to fit one of each
multiplication fact into their graph paper. Over time, students will learn to multiply length and
width and understand automatically that both are a factor of multiplication, and that the product
is really the area of a space.

Entrapment
Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.3.G.A.2
Partition shapes into parts with equal areas. Express the area of each part as a unit fraction of the
whole. For example, partition a shape into 4 parts with equal area, and describe the area of
each part as 1/4 of the area of the shape.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.G.B.4
Classify two-dimensional figures in a hierarchy based on properties
Materials:

Entrapment Game Board for 2 or 3 players

6-sided Die
Pencil, crayons

Directions: Included fully on the Entrapment Game Board attachment

Ongoing Practice and Differentiation:
As a game that doesnt appear to be as fact-based as the others, teachers and parents may
be concerned to see students playing this version of Tetris. However, this game is teaching
spatial awareness and shape area awareness. Students are actively spacing together pieces and
using strategy to best fill their boards. Students can play this in and out of school, have ongoing
games with their friends, and do full class games. This is an excellent first-step toward
extending students practice with products, dividends, ratios, percentages, and other partial/whole
counting techniques. A teacher can take the results of students games and lead them in further
inquiry about their results, such as careful bar graphing of how many of each shape was used in
their own game boards. Entrapment allows for any next step teaching opportunities to be in a
group, conversational and supportive environment; many other games with individual game
boards would require each student to be isolated once the game is over. Entrapment allows the
more difficult concepts, such as functions applied to fractions, negative numbers, partial
fractions, etc. to become more concrete. Students can play this with their parents at home, and
bring in their game boards to continue an in-class discussion of what the results mean and how
they might interpret them.

PEMDAS Board Game

Common Core State Standards:
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.5.OA.A.1
Use parentheses, brackets, or braces in numerical expressions, and evaluate expressions with
these symbols.
Materials:

Math Boards A, B, C, or D
Whole Number slips
Operations cards
Place holders

Directions:
1. Start by shuffling the number cards and the operation cards, and putting them in two
paper bags.
2. Each player starts with two playing pieces, and puts them in the large square in the center
of the game board (the one marked Start).
3. Each player draws a number card. The player with the highest number goes first.
4. A player takes his turn in the following steps
a. The player draws three number cards and two operation cards.
b. The player then has one minute to form an arithmetic formula using the cards
drawn
c. He or she does not have to use all the cards.
d. He or she can insert brackets anywhere in the formula.
e. The result of the formula should equal a number next to one of his or her
counters.
f. The player then moves his or her counter onto the new square.
g. If the player forms the formula incorrectly, the playing piece he or she tried to
move will return to the Start.
h. At the end of the turn, all the cards are returned back to their respective paper
bags.
i. At most one piece may be moved on each turn. If the player decides not to move,
he or she should call pass and return the cards to the bags.

j. Pieces may only be moved vertically or horizontally (not diagonally), and cannot
be moved into squares that are already occupied.
k. The winner is the first player to reach a square numbered 0 (zero).
Ongoing Practice and Differentiation:
Students playing this PEMDAS board game will be given extreme freedom in how they create
equations and use the numbers given to them. In essence, this game is differentiated from the
start. Students can play and use more or less numbers, more or less operations, to make it more
difficult. To make this easier, students can use more numbers and operations, or just use +/-.