I have to interrupt my little written narrations of reading over the past year or so to tell you about this great book of math games. I've written about a few of Denise Gaskins's books before: Let's Play Math and the combo book Counting and Number Bonds and Addition and Subtraction. This is another games book, but for older students.
My kids almost all struggled more with math as soon as we encountered multiplication and fractions. For the most part, they understood the concepts, but remembering all the multiplication facts was difficult. For fractions, it was recognizing the ones that were the same when they were simplified or had different denominators.
For my younger kids, I scheduled a games day when we'd just play the next game in this book. Some games were more fun than others, but with a loop (going back to the beginning when we finished the book), we got lots of practice with different facts and they knew their favorite games would come around again. I appreciated how the games depended almost entirely on things we had at home (like regular decks of playing cards) or free materials Denise Gaskins offers on her site if you purchase the book. There are also variations for most of the games to make them easier or more difficult.
The information she provides before the games and when introducing each one is really helpful for parents who are trying to understand how their children are thinking and guide the children to consider how all the multiplication problems and fractions are inter-related. The games give lots of practice with the facts themselves, which helps kids remember them, but they are designed to also encourage kids to explore how numbers are related to each other.
Some kids really thrive with games, and many children simply need a solid dose of math facts practice every day. This book was one tool in our homeschool to ensure we were getting some practice in.
I have received nothing in exchange for this post. Links to Bookshop and Amazon are affiliate links.
