Skills Practice With Online Games

It's a tad embarrassing. Teachers should not be addicted to online games...especially to games where the object is to find pairs of numbers that equal 10!

But it's happened. To me. If you're not careful, it might happen to you.

On the Math Learning Center website under Support for Families (click on your grade level on the left menu), a treasure-trove of fun can be found. The links contain a myriad of games appropriate for online practice with grade level skills.

In a fifth grade example, "Number Factory," challenges students to "add, subtract, multiply and/or divide a set of 4 numbers to come as close as possible to a target number." The game bears some similarity to Work Place 1B, "Roll 5," allowing students to try more exercises at home with their families.

During second and third grade Bridges, students examine combinations of numbers that equal a target number. Learning extends into a Work Place game (4B in second grade, 1A in third grade) called "Make the Sum." After specifically looking at combinations of numbers that make 10, you might suggest an online game called "Math Lines." A player is given a ball with a single digit and can fire at a moving line of other single digits. When the two digits make 10, you score points. Increasing levels of play move faster and faster as the player works to find pairs of numbers before the balls drop off the end of the cycle and play ends.

Games provide skills practice. They also provide additional challenge. Since links are found on the website, this resource can be easily accessed from school or home. By students...

...OR by teachers. Who cannot seem to quit playing until they've conquered the highest level. That would be me. (If you really want a nail-biting challenge, check out "Numbers" linked under Online Skills Practice for Grade 2 and 3.)

What are some of your students' favorite online math games?