Response to "Fun Online Math Games"

As a companion to my earlier post regarding video games in science class, I wanted to share an article I found about online math games.  Playing games in math class can be very fun and motivating for the students, and I feel children can gain a great deal of math skills by playing games (board games as well!).  As with any teaching strategy, though, I feel it's important to avoid too much repetition, so having a wide variety of math sites to use in class is very helpful.  In this article by Laura Ketcham, there are links to four sites where math games are available for a variety of ability levels.  While these games tend to focus on computation skills, I feel that those prerequisite skills are very important, and without good, solid computation skills, students face greater struggles with higher-level math concepts.

A couple of the sites had unique features that I felt would make them even more motivating for some students.  "Math Mayhem," for example, allowed the player to compete online with others who were also using the site at the same time.  I tried it out for about 10-15 minutes, and during each one-minute round I was joined by at least three other players.  Caution should be used though, because rather than being motivational, this feature could make the game very discouraging to the student who never gets the highest score.

"Math Arcade" had an interesting twist as well--every time you pass a level, you move on to a different game, thus preventing boredom from setting in.  Also, you are provided with a code at the end of each successful level so if play is interrupted, you can enter the code when you return to the site and just pick up where you left off.

The two other sites mentioned in the article, "The Math Magician" and "Sheppard Software" seemed fun and useful as well.  I plan to add all four sites to my LiveBinder and use them with my fifth grade math class this year!

The original article, "Fun Online Math Games" by Laura Ketcham, posted by Lauren Grossberg on July 5, 2011, can be viewed at:  http://blog.learningtoday.com/blog/bid/60693/Fun-Online-Math-Games