Fun Ways for Kids to Learn Math Facts
on Jan 03, 2015, Updated Jul 19, 2020
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I’m a firm believer that math facts are really important and I want my kids to know them inside out. I have very vivid memories of practicing math facts with my parents when I was a kid. My mom is a college math teacher and my dad is an engineer. Suffice it to say, math has always been very important to them and I give them a lot of credit for making me memorize those pesky facts. It wasn’t very fun, but they got the job done and knowing my basic math facts comes in handy every, single day.
It’s very important to me that my kids learn their math facts inside out, too. Since I’m the homeschool teacher for a preschooler, first, third, and fifth grader – the onus is on me to make it fun for them. Repetition is key to learning math facts {a few minutes of practice a day will go further than a longer session once a week} – but learning basic math facts doesn’t all have to be boring drudgery all the time. Here are a few ways I have found to make learning math facts more fun for my kids.
Fun Ways for Kids to Learn Math Facts
1. Time Tests & Grid Puzzles –
I know I hear groaning from the peanut gallery – but my kids love time tests. I’m not sure why as they don’t look like that much fun to me, but we added them to our daily task list just this winter and they love seeing how they improve and also how they compare to their siblings. I print free time tests from TSLBooks.com and we complete a different test 3-4 times per week. I also like these Grid Worksheets from DadsWorksheets.com and we will start doing them next week too.
2. Verbal Quizzing –
This is they way I used to practice math facts with my own parents. They quizzed me around the dinner table most evenings – 8 and 6 always gave me trouble – across addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division – but we practiced often enough that I finally got it. My husband and I run through math facts in the car and also at dinner time with our own kids. It becomes a fun round robin sort of game – it’s easy to vary the difficulty so that everyone gets to practice, even parents. And our kids loving coming up with problems to stump their mom and dad.
3. Games –
We have not used a lot of games in our curriculum thus far – but I did find a couple that I’d really like to try – Sum Swamp for my younger two kiddos and Math War flash cards for the older two. I think they’re really get into games like these and it would be fun family time for us as well.
4. Reading Books –
We have a few fun books that work well for the younger ages – The Hershey’s Kisses math series and also a few books by Math Start like Monster Musical Chairs. The kids especially love the Hershy’s Kisses books because reading them sometimes involves treats! Who doesn’t love treats?
5. Learning apps –
I’m always on the lookout for fun learning apps and one math app we recently tried and enjoy is Splash Math for the ipad. You can download free versions of the 1-5 grade app here and the pre-k app here.
I really like that the basic math fact review section where you can choose operation and difficulty, but the app includes so much more as well! My three younger kids enjoyed the graphics, interaction, and music. And I liked the variety of lessons.
In addition to helping kids practice basic math facts, Splash Math also reinforces key concepts like number rounding, geometry, and telling time. Splash Math sends out weekly progress emails so you know how your kids did in their practice, too. We tried out the free version, which does place limits on the number of tasks a student can complete in one day, but the kids enjoyed it, so I see the paid version in our future very soon.
Join the 8 million+ users!
Download Splash Math on iTunes!
Get SplashMath for Grades 1-5
Get SplashMath for Pre-K
Or check them out on Google Play!
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These are ways I’ve found to make learning math facts fun in our house! How do you reinforce this very important concept with your kids?
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