Math Card Game for Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division

This morning Benny and I invented a new way to use our giant deck of cards to study math. Here's what we did:

We shuffled the deck and put the pile next to his paper. He would flip over two cards, write those values in the spaces, then choose whether to use multiplication, division, addition, or subtraction to find an answer. Then he wrote the answer.

This was a great exercise for three reasons:

1. It was fun for him to write his own questions and he loves using the cards.

2. It made him consider the answer to all four of the problems, before he chose one to write down. He most wanted to use division, since that to him is the coolest, so he would be happy if he pulled, for example, a king and a 4, so he could divide twelve by four.

3. He got to test me a little -- on the last few he did, he left the operation circle blank, and asked me which operation he had used. Rather than hesitating to give him the answer, I cheerfully participated in my part of the quiz, because he already had to have figured it out, to be asking me.

I want to do this exercise again, and I made a printable math game page for future use, which I will share with you.

This could be used in different ways -- the kid could fill in the numbers and quiz you on which operation was used, you could use it blank with a deck of cards like we did, or you could use it to solve for X if you leave just one of the spaces blank and give the answers. Hope it's useful!

Here's an image preview of the page, click on it or the link above for the print-friendly web page:

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Math Practice at Home: Book Review

I have been looking, for a while, for a really cool math workbook that's colorful and fun. So many of the ones I look at get very grayscale after kindergarten. As if 7 year olds do not enjoy multiplying funny dogs or figuring out how many red flags are flying on castle turrets.



This book I found in the free box at our local homeschooling store because the first third of it had been written in. I took it home and ripped out the first third of it, and we've been living it up with colorful illustrations, interesting story problems, and fun little games.



I think the reason it's so fun, and so devoid of those awful death-marches of practice problems, you know rows and rows of black and white text stretching on into the abyss, is because it's meant as a supplement, not a main lessons. It appears to be for school kids to get more practice, during the summer or on the weekends. So, in their brief moments of escape from the avalanche of dreary homework applied by the school, they're also supposed to do more work assigned by their parents? At least this "supplement" is really fun.

Here's an example of one of the pages. You have to measure the length of one side and then figure out the perimeter.



Highly recommended. It comes in different grade levels. We are doing the Grade 3.