Portable Math Pack

If you would like to make math more fun for your child put this portable math pack together and take it with you on your next outing. All you need are three dice, a pack of cards, a calculator, 50-100 pennies (or something for counting), a big piece of sidewalk chalk, string, paper, a compass (the mathematical kind), a ruler and a pencil. Gather these items and put them together in a lunchbox, pencil box, or any kind of portable carrying case. Then, print out these game ideas and add them to the box for fun learning on the go. There are many more ideas online.

Dice Games: roll 2-3 dice and add the numbers, roll 2 dice and subtract, roll 3 dice and add two and subtract the third, roll 2 dice and multiple, roll 3 dice and add two and then multiply the third, roll 3 dice and multiple all the dice in at least two different ways, identify even and odd numbers rolled, take turns rolling three dice and add, subtract, multiply or divide to get as close to ten as possible, roll one die as many times as you want to get as close to 21 as possible without going over and the person who is the closest wins, each player (2, 3, or 6 players) gets 10 pennies and is assigned a number 1-6 (or multiple numbers like 1 & 2, or 1,2, & 3, depending on the number of players) then each player takes turns rolling three dice- if a one is rolled for example the player whose number is one may put a penny in the center- the player to get rid of all 10 pennies first is the winner.

Card Games: Play Go Fish (seven cards each) and make pairs, play “war” whoever has the high card wins, play “peace” whoever has the low card wins, put down two cards and add, subtract or multiply them as quickly as you can, with three players- two draw a card and without looking at them place them face out on their forehead- the third person names the product and the two with cards must guess what their card is as quickly as possible, play “fish plus one” (first remove the face cards) where instead of looking for exact matches you want to find the match to your card plus one (if you have a 5 you want to ask for a 6 because 5+1=6), play “fish plus two, three, four or five”, play “fish plus plus” where you try to accumulate a set of three cards where two add up to the third and then you can lay them down (2+4=8), play “Build-a-Number” where a card placed on the table can be built on with two other cards to create a number set (for example if an 8 is placed on the table, you could place a 6 & 2 down or two 4’s or a 5 & 3 but you could also put down a 1&9 using the 8 for part of the building rather than the sum)- in addition to building a sum you can also build a product.

Mental Math: The idea behind mental math is to help kids be flexible thinkers and to visualize numbers and object in their heads. It also gives them practice in composing and decomposing numbers. Here are some examples: There are 4 cars, 2 bicycles and 1 tricycle, how many wheels in all? There are 12 hungry kids who will eat three pieces of pizza each. Each pizza has 8 slices. How many pizzas do they need? Will there be any leftovers? It is the 4th of March, how many more days until the 17th of March? After some practice you will get very good at making these up on the spot.

Calculator: use a calculator to check answers, to play, to add prices at the grocery store, to find percentages, decimals, miles, times and more. Pick a number (say, 18) and add it to the palindrome of that number (81) and see your results- try this with several numbers and find a pattern (make sure you try with 3 digit numbers and higher as well), play “broken calculator,” try to get a certain number to appear on the calculator screen (say 96) without actually pressing either 9 or 6- you can use any operation necessary, find the numbers that look like words when you turn the calculator upside down (07734=hello) and come up with a math problem or riddle to get 07734 (or whatever your word is) as your answer- then show it off).

Compass, ruler, pencil, paper: Challenge yourself to create different shapes, angles, lines with only these tools. For example, can you make a hexagon? Can you make a 90 degree angle? Can you accurately make a shape inside another shape- a circle inside a triangle for example? Measure and compare objects with your ruler, find a stick or use your pencil and attach the string to it on one end and the sidewalk chalk to it on the other end- draw a large circle outside on the sidewalk in chalk then make up some games to play.

Have fun exploring mathematics every day!