Math facts practice can be fun and engaging in the elementary classroom if you have the right tools! I want to share with you five fun math fact fluency activities and games that can be used with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. Here they are…
1. Class Vs. Teacher
Class vs. Teacher is a game that students love to play at the end of the day or during a math warm-up! Using Uno cards (or you can use a deck of playing cards), students compete against you to solve math fact problems. You can play this with addition facts or multiplication facts, depending on your grade level.
How to play:
Flip over two cards and ask the class to add (or multiply) the two cards together. Call on a student to answer the problem. Then the teacher flips over two cards and adds (or multiplies) them together. Whomever has the highest sum/product wins a point.
This is the perfect game to keep going all week long! Simply keep a tally up on the whiteboard of Class vs. Teacher. Students love playing this and if they end up beating me in points, I give them an extra 10 minutes of recess or another classroom reward.
Also, I LOVE using Uno Cards because of the “extra” cards.
If students get a wild, they can choose any number they want. If they get a draw 2 or draw 4, they can pick the two highest cards to work towards their advantage. If they get a skip card, they lose their turn and it’s an automatic point for the opponent. If they get a reverse card, we use that as a double and just double the number of their other card. As you can see, there are so many fun extra twists you can make to this game by using the Uno cards!
2. Solve It Strips® Math Puzzles
Solve It Strips® are by far my FAVORITE MATH CENTER in the classroom! These mental math puzzles help students practice their math facts in a fun and non-routine way! For Solve It Strips, students have to correctly solve the problem on each strip in order to end up with the “FINISH” strip. Students love the challenge and I love that they can use this all year long as an early-finisher math activity. See more Solve It Strips here.
3. Around the World with Fact Flips
For this game, students get into groups of three and use Fact Flips to practice quizzing each other on their math facts. One student is the “Flipper” while the other two players play against one another. The flipper randomly points to one fact on the Fact Flip and students race to call out the correct answer. The Flipper opens the Fact Flip to see if the student said the correct answer. If they did, they get a point, and if they didn’t the opponent gets a chance to say the correct answer and take the point. The Flipper leaves the Fact Flip open for problems already practiced and the round is over once the Fact Flip is completely opened. This is a great way for students to work on one fact family at a time, in a collaborative and interactive way!
4. Math Tiles
Math Tiles are another hands-on way for students to practice their math facts! Students manipulate number tiles, 0-9, to correctly solve all the problems on each tile card. Students may only use each number tile one time, so they have to use their critical thinking and fact fluency skills to work through each tile card. This math center can be used all year long as you can swap out different Math Tile Sets.
5. Partner Math Games
Anytime you pair students up to practice math facts, it makes is so much more fun for them! My students love pairing up with a mini whiteboard and some dice to practice their facts. I’ve put together a Math Fact Fun Bundle for addition, subtraction and multiplication, so you can simply print and let students practice and play! Grab a free set of these addition activities below to try out with your students!
I hope your students love these activities as much as mine do!
💚 Erin
quietcaballero says
I think your class vs teacher idea is great! Using normal playing cards is fun, but as you said, using Uno cards can add a whole new layer of entertainment and learning. Thank you for sharing this idea.
Amy says
I love how simple and hands on all of these games and activities on. These seem like fantastic ways to help students review while also enjoying their math times. I will be using some of these with my 2nd graders thank you so much!