Activities & Games

Zeno

Grade: TK-5

Zeno has an extensive bank of games and activities that can be searched by grade-level and/or content.

Thank you, Sarah!

Place Value Styrofoam Cups

Grade: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th

Using cheap styrofoam cups to illustrate place value and digits.

Teaching Commutative Property and Fact Families via Color

Grade: K, 1st

CCSS Math standards don't require Grades K, 1st to learn the Commutative Property by name.

Bar Graph Sponges

Grade: TK-6

Upper grades could make each sponge a different unit.

How Many Cubes Am I Hiding?

Grade: K, 1st

Using understanding of "partners", student deduce how many objects a teacher is hiding behind his/her back.

Doing this game with the benchmark numbers of 5 or 10 would probably be most common, but the game could be performed with any number.

Guess My Number

Grade: K

Students use deduction to try to guess the teacher's number. Questions you could gradually model might include:

Is the number even or odd?
Is the number greater than _____?
Is the number less than ______?
Is the number equal to _____?
Is the number between ____ and ____?
Is the number written with only straight lines, curvy lines, or both?

Kinder Math 5-Frame

Grade: K

Some fun ways for Kindergarten students to engage with 5. Also great use of sentence frames.

Mingle & Count

Grade: K

Students move around to make a number.

"Fun"dred Charts

Grade: K, 1st

Builds number sense.

Making a Ten with Playing Cards

Grade: 1st, 2nd

Players combine two cards to make a ten.

Addition/Subtraction War and Dice Place Value War

Grade: 1st, 2nd

Playing Cards: Students add and subtract numbers and then winner collects all of the cards for that round. The player with the most cards at the end wins the game.

Dice: Students roll three dice to try to create the largest number. One might consider making this more rigorous.

Race Up/Down to 100

Grade: 1st, 2nd

This game can be played either by adding until one player reaches 100, or can be played in reverse in which subtracting from 100 until one player reaches 0.

Trashcan Game & 101 and Out

Grade: 1st, 2nd, 3rd

Addresses understanding of place value. This game could be modified for various grade levels by adjusting how many place values to incorporate and perhaps the number of mandatory rolls for each player. The game could also be played in reverse with subtraction.

Click on the actual title of the video on the right to download supporting materials from TeachingChannel.

Money Exchange Place Value Game

Grade: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th

Players explore the base ten system by exchanging money units. While this video uses ones, tens, and hundreds, the game could be modified for upper grades by using decimals (i.e., pennies and dimes). First graders could play just with ones and tens.

How Close to 100?

Grade: 3rd, 4th, 5th

Super fun! Players take turns rolling a pair of dice, from which they develop a multiplication sentence that they must turn into an array and draw onto a 100 grid. The goal of the game is to strategically fill up as much of the 100 grid as possible. Additional information and the recording sheets are available on the youcubed.com site.

Decimals

Grade: 4th

Players add decimals to get as close to 2 wholes as possible.

Click on the actual title of the video on the right to download supporting materials from TeachingChannel.

Jack and Jill Math

Grade: K-6

Promote SMP modeling and argumentation skills by addressing common student errors.