Math can be fun and games too!
As I read another classmates post about a bingo game he created for learning fractions, it inspired me to do more research on mathematical games and activities. I feel that often times we as educators become too focused on the process of teaching the content so that students understand it, that we forget that our students are still kids. Learning needs to be fun and relevant so that the students may be engaged in the content. In todays day, we are fortunate to have technology on our side when it comes to education. There are so many resources that have interactive games and activities that students could even practice at home.
One resource I recently learned about is splash learn:
https://www.splashlearn.com/teacher/class/bauer-student-teaching/grades/502B90E39DBC48139AD3E481D48E1EB5/dashboard
This resource has games that prompt students to select the correct answer in a fun way. One example is a cartoon fishing boat that casts a line with an expression (ie. 3+2). there are fish that slowly swim by that have different answers. The students are prompted to select the correct fish and when they do the line catches the fish and pulls it up along with a celebrating sound.
Another resource is embarc:
https://embarc.online/course/view.php?id=36
This resource follows along with Eureka math and has many activities for practicing fluency.
One game I always loved to play in school was jeopardy. This game was fun because it gave us a chance to work with others as teams. This game was also great to help us review what we know and what we really needed to spend more time studying/ learning. Jeopardy is also great because it can be used for any subject, topic and lesson.
Eventually, I would like to create a few games of my own, but for now I look forward to exploring more resources with activities.
I looked up splash learn, and it is definitely a great and fun tool when earning a particular math topic. I never thought about Jeopardy, and I am wondering how I can apply it to long division.
ReplyDeleteYes, math needs to be fun! We need to engage students, but more than that if they are invested in some way, even as immediate a way as a game, the harder they'll work at the math needed and the more it will mean to them. That leads to the retention we need!
ReplyDeleteThese are all amazing sites that I had no idea about! I'll definately have to explore them more thruoughly and try and incorporat them into my lessons/homework. Another 2 great sites you should look at that I use a lot are Blookit and Math playground.
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