Ep 52: 5 Games to Maximize Your Child’s Number Sense and Math Skills in 5 Minutes or Less!

In the last episode, I talked about games that
you could play in five minutes or less with few
materials like dice or cards. Today's episode
is games that you can play anywhere with absolutely
no materials. Hello, and welcome to Making Number
Sense Make Sense, a podcast for elementary teachers,
specifically early elementary teachers, looking
to really make an impact in the number sense
of their students. Often people aren't really
sure how to talk to kids about math or how to
talk to kids about math in a way that grows connections
between numbers and their relationship to each
other. So these games are perfect for that. And
like I said, require absolutely no materials.
The first game is called clap the number. So
in this one, you say a number, for example, three,
and then your child would count and clap once
for each number that they count. If they're still
learning to count and learning the number sequence,
you can do it together. As they get better, they
can do it on their own and you can increase the
number range or how many you're asking them to
count. The next game is called guess my number.
And this is where they really start to think
about numbers in relation to each other. So you
think of a number and then your child has to
guess what it is. So you might say. I'm thinking
of a number between one and 10. And your child
might say seven. And you as the grownup can give
a clue to help them get closer to the number
that you're thinking of. So if they guess seven,
you could say, oh, it's higher than seven. So
they'd have to think which numbers are higher
than seven. So they might give you 10. But if
that wasn't your number, you'd say, oh no, it's
lower than 10. And they might say eight. And
if eight is the number, then they've got it and
you can go again. And as they get better at it,
you can have them think of a number. And they
give you the clues. So then they're the ones
really thinking about, is it less than or greater
than the number that you guessed to be able to
figure out what the number is. The next game
is called what's missing. So you'll give a sequence
of numbers and you would say four blank six.
So they have to think about which number comes
in between four and six. So they might do something
like start counting from one or they'll be able
to start counting from. three, and find that
missing number. So what you're really trying
to see is what strategy are they using to figure
out what the number is, and you can encourage
them either way. And if you want to give them
a bit of a challenge, you could go backwards.
So instead of saying four blank six, you might
say six blank four, and then they have to count
backwards to figure that out, which is more challenging
than counting forwards. So that would be something
I would suggest. If they're pretty familiar with
the number sequence forwards, you can start to
go backwards. And if you really want a challenge,
you can start to consider which number sequences
are a challenge for your child. So in kindergarten,
they're supposed to be able to count pretty high,
sometimes counting all the way to 100, but there
might be some areas that are tripping them up.
Like the teen numbers can be really tricky, like
11, 12, 13, because it doesn't follow the same
pattern. Or they're able to follow the number
sequence. So they might start counting from one,
get to 27, 28, 29, and then forget which number
comes next in the decade. In that case, you might
want to try giving them counting sequences, but
that are the 10. So 10 blank 30. So they'd have
to think about which number comes between. 10
and 30 if you're counting by tens. And that helps
them remember which numbers are in the decade.
And then when they're counting by one, they can
get higher because they remember what those numbers
are. The next game is called I Spy Shapes. And
that's a great way to get your children to recognize
shapes in the real world or the attributes of
shapes or what makes that shape special. So you
might say something like. I spy a shape that's
round. So they might have to think about, ooh,
which shapes look like a circle and then pick
the ones that might look like a circle. Or you
could say something that it reminds you of. So
you could say, I spy a shape that looks like
a pizza. And they'd have to look for a shape
that might be round like a pizza. Or if you're
thinking more of pizza slice, they might be looking
for a triangle. And you can go both ways. You
can use the things that make the shape special.
So you might say, I spy a shape that has three
sides, and then they'd have to say what the name
of that shape is, or something that you're looking
at based on the shapes that are in it. So you
might say, I spy something that has three circles
in it, and the circles are red, yellow, and green.
And then they'd guess a traffic light. And you
can take turns, so you can describe a shape to
them, and they can describe a shape to you. The
last game... is called keep on counting so in
this game you're just taking turns counting to
see how high you can get so the first player
would say one the second player would say two
then it goes back to the first player and they
say three or however many players there are it
doesn't have to be just two people and you can
see how high you can get you can start by saying
let's get to 10 and then take turns getting to
10. And as they get better, you can have your
goal higher. So let's get to 20. Let's get to
30. You can also skip count. So let's count to
100 by 10. Then the players would say 10, 20,
30 until you get to 100. I will have all of these
games written out so you can refer back to it
in a blog post in the show notes. Or if you're
looking for more games that you can play with
no materials or maybe few materials like dice
or cards, Whole collection will be linked in
the show notes as well. Which game are you going
to try first?