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You are here: Home / Blog / blog / 97+ Amazing Ways to Make Math Fun for Our Kids

97+ Amazing Ways to Make Math Fun for Our Kids

August 1, 2023 By Bekki 11 Comments This content may contain affiliate links.

Inside: A master list of simple, inexpensive, and fun ways to teach all the basic math principles your kids need to thrive. PLUS- Free Math Roadmap

Most homeschoolers overcomplicate math with fancy curriculum, worksheets, quizzes, stop-watches and tests. We choose to be different!

Before you scroll, get your free gift

Stripping math back to its basic foundational core, we can set our kids up for success in life by giving them a solid foundation with allows them to add, subtract, multiply, divide, count, measure, weigh, and estimate.

Pickin’ Cute!!!

Most kids are not mathematicians hiding inside little bodies. They are dancers, chefs, architects, designers, farmers, mechanics, bankers, writers or yet-to-be-decideds.

Let’s give our kids a solid foundation in the area of math so they can balance their checkbook, decide which deal is the best bargain, measure that granite with accuracy, give an estimate for that remodel, or plan out their crops. If they decide that math is their universe, then we can strap on a deep sea diving suit and bring them face to face the parabolas, quadratic formulas, and matrixes in the last years of high school or pass them off to a college professor.

YES! I want this, PLEASE.

Pro Tips for Making Math Fun

make math fun
Even Algebra
  • Balance using math manipulatives, patterning activities, measuring, and art with pencil and paper activities.
  • Play math games related to the concepts being learned and practiced.
  • Weave stories about math into the day.
  • Find ways to eat math!
  • Sing it! Songs stick and stay in our kid’s memory.

Make Math Fun with these AMAZING Math Supplies from Moms and Teachers like you!

Don’t feel pressure to get everything.

A good set of math manipulatives, books, and games will help you and your kids have fun with math for years! I collected math manipulates for the first few years of homeschooling and teaching, even adding a kit or two during gift giving!

  • Linking cubes for adding and subtracting, patterning and more
  • Base Ten Blocks, for understanding place value, addition and subtraction
  • Counting Bears for adding, subtracting, grouping, patterning, and more
  • Number Line Activities
  • Pattern Blocks
  • Fishing Math Game
  • Geometric Solids
  • Pizza Fractions
  • AMAZING flashcards
  • Roman Numerals, time, money, decimals, and MORE Learning Kit

For now, we serve our kids and their future best by giving them a solid foundation in math.

Table of Contents of 16 Math Concepts Covered in the different activities here:

  1. Fine motor skills
  2. Colors
  3. Shapes
  4. Patterning
  5. Sorting
  6. Math art
  7. Addition/subtraction
  8. Tally marks
  9. Number lines
  10. Multiplication/Division
  11. Estimating
  12. Fractions
  13. Decimals
  14. Money
  15. Time
  16. Percentages

4 Ways to Make Math Fun While Building and Strengthening Fine Motor Skills

make math fun

According to studies, “fine motor skills were a better predictor of early maths ability than they were of early reading ability,” (source)

Safety Tip: Kids like to put things in their mouths so you’re going to want to closely supervise your kids when they are working with things they might choose to taste. Like Legos, marbles, pom poms, and play dough.

If it fits through a toilet paper roll, consider it a choking hazard and watch them closely.

  • Pom-Pom Sorting by Busy Toddler
  • Texture Balloons for Kids by Little Bins for Little Hands
  • Pasta Threading Activity by Laughing Kids Learn
  • Play dough Fun Trays by Pocket of Preschool
  • Fine Motor Skills Printable Bundle by A Better Way to Homeschool
make math fun
YES!!!

8 Fun Ways to Teach Kids Colors and Shapes

make math fun

One of the first math skills kids learn is to identify colors and shapes. This is a fun time in their math career, when all learning is disguised as playtime.

Lean into it and help them have fun!

  • Songs about colors  collected by Prekinders
  • Goldfish sorting by Live Like You Are Rich
  • Hungry Monster Sorters by Like Like You Are Rich
  • Easy Color Wheel Sorting by Craftionary
  • FREE All About Colors Learning Pack by This Reading Mama
  • How to teach a toddler their colors by Live like you are rich
  • My First Colors


make math fun

Teaching kids colors

Learning shapes unit by Planning Playtime

FREE Dab a Dot Shapes by 123 Homeschool 4 me

36+ Fun Patterning and Sorting Activities

make math fun

From the very beginning, kids need to sort all kinds of items and create or repeat patterns. It’s a foundational math skill that will set them up for success in the future.

Yes, they can sort laundry and the sippy cup drawer, but there are some fun manipulatives that can be purchased once and then used over and over again.

FREE Bear Counter Strip Patterns by The Measured Mom

Bear counter fun

Introducing Patterns to Toddlers by Busy Toddler

Shape Sorting for Toddlers by Mess for Less

My Favorite Shape Sorter by Melissa and Doug

Graph that Pattern by A Better Way to Homeschool

How to Introduce patterns to preschoolers

Pattern Shape sorter

Pattern Block Printable cards

30 Hands On Math Printables

25+ Fun with Math-Art Ideas

make math fun

Most kids need to explore concepts in multiple ways in order to get a firm understanding. You might think about art projects when you dream about math at night, but the right math art project may be just the ticket to capture your child’s imagination!

21 Math Art Ideas by What Do We Do All Day

Print and Color Tessellations by Frugal Fun for Boys

Math Art Projects

Math Pattern Blocks for Art

Print and Color Tessellation Puzzles

The Art of Circles by Nurture Store

Radial Symmetry by Art with Mrs. Nguyen

Compass Painting by Housing a Forest

Math fractions and symmetry

7+ FUN Addition and Subtraction Activities and Ideas

Whack a Ball Subtraction Game by Planning Playtime

Fun Addition puzzles to 100 by Teaching Products

Simple to use Addition and Subtraction Fun Sheets by A Better Way to Homeschool

Addition and subtraction BUNDLE by Rebekah Sayler

Fun with Uni fix Cubes by Homegrown Learners

Good old fashioned flash cards

Counting with centimeter cubes

4 Tally Mark and Number Line Activities

make math fun

Tally Marks: Right Start Math Activity by Two Happy Homeschoolers

Tally Marks Activity by Kindergarten Smorgasboard

Walk the Number Line by PBS

LEGO Number Line by Royalbaloo

7 Fun Multiplication and Division Activities and Ideas

Star Wars Multiplication Practice by A Better Way to Homeschool

Multiplication Bundle by A Better Way to Homeschool

How to teach multiplication and Division with LEGO by Math Geek Mama

Hands-On Division Activity by Rainy Day Mum

2 Fun Estimating Activities for Kids

make math fun

Estimation Jars for Preschool by Mama Papa Bubba

Estimating Task Cards FREE by You’ve Got this Math

Related: Why Teaching BOTH estimation and accuracy is important.

7 Fun Ways to Teach Kids Fractions

make math fun

Cooking Camp for Kids by A Better Way to Homeschool

Pizza Fraction Project by 4th Grade Frolics

Fraction Mats by ABCs with Mrs B

5 FUN Decimal Activities and Ideas

make math fun

Rules of Decimals by Moore Resources

How to introduce decimals by Classroom Caboodle

FREE Multiplying and Dividing Decimals Game By Math Geek Mama

Learn decimals

4 FUN Money Activities and Ideas

make math fun

As our kids grow, we want them to develop real world math skills. What could be more “real world” than learning to understand money?

Budgeting for Kids by A Better Way to Homeschool

FREE Counting Money Flip Cards by Life Over CS

Coin Caterpillar by Miss Kindergarten

Money Sorting Mat by Mrs. Hodge and Her Kindergarten Kids

4 Fun Activities and Ideas for Teaching Time

make math fun

“Mom! What time is it?”

This may not be asked as often these days, since everyone seems to have a device in their reach that can tell time, but none the less, learning to tell time will save kids from embarrassment at some point in their lives.

Making Clocks to Practice Telling Time by A Better Way to Homeschool

Hula Hoop Clock by Creekside Learning

It’s Always Time to Pray by A Better Way to Homeschool

After School Routine Clock by Heathered Nest

The Easy Way to Solve Percentages

Lastly, we don’t want to neglect those older students! Even though they’ve moved on to more exciting math, we can still add some fun into their practice!

You’ll be surprised how much time kids spend working with percentages as they get older. Solving percents is a skill most people will use throughout their lives.

make math fun
Don’t fret about Algebra!

One-Step Equations

Imaginary Numbers

Exponents


Additional Math FUN

If you can find a math picture book that discusses, explains, or introduces math concepts then you will want to throw them into the reading basket!

Here is a collection of some excellent Math Books for Kids!


fun math
fun math
math fun worksheets
classifying numbers
fun math
budget project math

Yes Please

Filed Under: blog, Homeschool Hacks, popular, Ready to go Resources, sticky Tagged With: Fine Motor Skills, math, Math art, Math facts, Patterning and sorting, teach addition and subtraction

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Comments

  1. Kelley says

    January 23, 2019 at 6:39 pm

    This list is AMAZING! Thanks so much for saving me so much time!

    Reply

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