Classical kids math games I would love kids to play

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Most kids have difficulty learning the difference between right and left and to develop a sense of navigation or spatial skill is one of the important concepts of math. Kids with well developed spatial skills are very creative, dramatic, artistic and musical.

There are many fun kids math games developing such spatial skill which I enjoy playing with the kids at my center but the games described below are some of my favorites.

Beautiful colors

You can help your kids differentiate between right and left by using colors. Kids usually know the names of basic colors like red, blue, green and yellow before they learn direction as colors are something which they can see and easily associate with things around them. Tie colored ribbon around their wrists, for example, tie yellow on the right wrist and green on the left. Then you ask them to raise their right hand, the yellow one or the left hand, the green one. This is one of the many simple and fun kids math games which will help them to connect or associate the color with the correct direction.

Playing traffic policeman

Kids have boundless energy and they never seem to be able to sit still.  I would usually play this game during their break time where I will have one kid pretending to be a traffic policeman. She will wear a blue glove on the right hand and a red glove on the left hand. She will be directing traffic as to where each kid will be sitting at their table for their break. When I say this kid goes to the right, she will have to raise her right hand with the blue glove and similarly with the left hand. The kids cannot wait for their turn to play this game which is one of the many kids math games which we play to help them to learn the concept of direction.

Bowling game

You would need a ball and some empty plastic bottles. Line up the bottles in a row like bowling pins and let the kid use the ball to hit the bottles from varying distances. They must listen carefully to know which hand they must use to roll the ball and if they use the wrong hand their scores will be subtracted.  I would usually play this game as a competition to see which group can bowl down the most bottles to make it more fun and exciting. This is one of the excellent kids math games which we play at the center as it not only help to develop their coordination and navigation skills but also on their counting and arithmetic skills such as addition and subtraction as I would involve the kids on how to keep a scorecard by learning to count the number of bottles which fell, adding or subtracting the scores to decide which group is the winner.

Kids gain a great sense of accomplishment when they learn to do things with their hands and playing these kids math games helps them to refine their motor skills at they involve the small muscle movements of their hands and fingers in coordination with their eyes and also require dexterity, precision and manipulative skills.

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Tags: children math, kids math, kindergarten math, kis math games

5 benefits when kids math games are made funny for kids

Understanding math concepts do not just involve practice but is a developmental process as it is understanding the concepts and applying them to the environment and your daily lives and teaching these concepts can be made more enjoyable, funny and lively for your kids when you know how to inject some humor, fun and creativity into the games.

Try these funny kids math games -

1. Clown bowling game
   Draw several simple clown faces and write numbers 1 to 10. Paste them on empty water bottles. Place these bottles in a row like bowling pins. Say out an addition problem – What is 2 + 2? The kid will have to aim the answer with a ball and do a victory dance when the kid bowls the correct answer.
2. Rocks, paper and scissors
   Write numbers from 1 to 20 and place them on the floor. Break the kids into two groups and each group stand at the end of the row of cards. The kids are required to jump over one card at a time and while jumping over the card must call out the number written on the card. When the two kids meet, do rock, paper and scissors. The kid who loses leaves and is replaced with another kid from his team to continue where they have stopped but the kid who wins continues the game. The kid who reaches the end of the row of cards wins.

When kids math games are made funny for kids, your kids will be reaping the following 5 benefits -

1. When kids enjoy the funny games, making them laugh, carbon dioxide are driven out of the body and is replaced by oxygen-rich air thus boost immunity and helps the kids to relax and reduces their stress level.
2. Laughter and fun provides the kids to express their developing powers of reasoning and creativity and they will learn and retain more of what is being taught to them.
3. When kids are exposed to the funny side of math which is always perceived to be a rigid and boring subject, stretches their imagination to think out of the box and learning to look at the problem differently to come out with different creative ways to solve the problem.
4. When kids laugh at funny games helps to break the ice and encourage them to interact with each other, develop their social growth as they learn how to get along with others and work in groups.
5. When humor is incorporated into kids math games, it enriches the learning process as when the serious learning is made funny and playful, the kids interest is intensified making them more attentive listeners, willing participants and sharp observers and their love to learn more of math will grow.

When kids are playing and exploring in enriched environment that is fun, humorous, playful and at the same time of educational value serves to support your kids in their cognitive thinking skills, motor skills as you need muscles to laugh and their emotional skills that is they feel happy while learning and that learning is fun.

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Tags: funny for kids, games for fun kids, kids math, kids math games

Kindergarten activities – creative kids math

How do you identify creative kids?

1. They are imaginative, resourceful and uninhibited.
2. They are open to new ideas and see things in a different way.
3. They are curious, alert, and adventurous and risk taking.
4. They are independent in thinking and social behavior.
5. They are inventive and good at solving problems.
6. They love challenges and are easily bored with routine and mundane tasks.

Kindergarten activities which develop creative thinking encourage the kids to think critically, using their existing knowledge to explore new ways of thinking. We can incorporate language, music or math into these activities and for this article we will discuss on using math to develop creativity.

Whenever the word math is mentioned, numbers and formulas come into the picture. Math is more than just number crunching but when it is being introduced to kids creatively, can improve skills like reasoning, logic and problem solving and also widen the kids understanding of Math to a wider scope as listed below:

1. To enable the kids to sort objects in a logical series according to size, shape or any other characteristic.
   Find objects of different shapes like a book, a clock, a piece of sandwich or pizza, a photo frame, a ball, a pencil case. Put them together and ask the child to group them according to their size. For example a book is a rectangle, what other objects here are rectangle shapes.
   You can invent different kindergarten activities by finding objects of different sizes or talk about animals and ask them what animals are big and small.
2. To enable the kids to understand the concept of numbers by letting them have direct experience with objects as the kids will discover that numbers  are not just digits but extend to our everyday lives.
   Kindergarten activities which kids under five need are songs, rhymes and finger plays that include numbers like Little Indian Boys/Girls, while singing, finger play with them, show your  fingers while singing One Little, Two Little, Three Little Indians and so on.
   You can also ask questions like – Mummy bought 5 apples and put them in the refrigerator yesterday. You ate one apple and Daddy ate two, so how many apples are in the refrigerator now? Allow the kids to answer and ask them to check the refrigerator to see whether they are correct.
3. To develop their spatial skills by discovering how to fit things together, take things apart, rearrange things and navigation. Kids with well developed spatial skills are very creative, dramatic, artistic and musical. Some kindergarten activities which encourage spatial skills are playing with Lego, tangram, mazes, play dough and chess.

Engage your kids in creative thinking activities the whole day while you are preparing your meals, gardening or clearing your laundry by asking open-ended questions which are worded in such a way that there is no one correct answer. An example is while clearing your groceries asks your kids what they can do with this tomato. Open-ended questions like this engage the kids in divergent or creative thinking to come up with a whole range of brilliant and imaginative ideas.

If you want to play more of such creative kindergarten activities, you can click here to visit www.gamesforfunkids.com as they have more than 360 of such activities in their “Mind Power Series” and the most unique feature of this Series is that it provides useful and practical tips on how to use the activities in varied creative ways for smart thinking and learning and you can also claim your free e-book worth $97.00 on “Train your child to think like a Genius by putting 10 essential thinking skills into fun action” before they pull it out!

Tags: funny for kids, games for fun kids, kids math, kindergarten activities