Fun and Simple Math Games

I love flashcards!  I have been collecting flashcards for several years and have found some great ones for playing simple games, learning letters and reinforcing math concepts.  I have noticed that Oliver, Ellie and Gideon have been visiting my flashcard drawer a lot lately and love playing "school" with each other as well as simple games.

Today they pulled out my Gummy Bear Flashcards and wanted to play a game with them. I bought these flashcards for fifty cents at Good Will and the pack includes 39 cards with shape, number and color recognition on them. The colorful Gummy Bear's are what catch their eyes!

Ellie had fun searching for the shape and color cards

**Teaching Tip: Just making your flashcards available for the kids to play with encourages them to explore without it being a "forced" learning time.  They may not have played this game so well if I had been the one to pull the cards out and try to organize the game myself.

I spread the cards out all over the floor and Oliver, Ellie and I played a searching game with them.  Both Oliver and Ellie loved asking each other, "Can you find a ___________?"  This was a fun game to watch, because Oliver tailored his questions appropriately for Ellie and I was able to ask him some more difficult questions appropriate for his age level.  

For Ellie, we had her searching for different shapes and colored bears.

For Oliver, I was asking him to find cards with a specific number of bears on them.  He would pick up each card and count the bears. I tried to have him look at the overall group of bears and decide if the number he was looking for was greater than or smaller than the group on the card.  I want him to gain an overall sense of numbers (especially when items are grouped) that enables him to be able to estimate how many items are in a group without always having to count each item individually.
I also asked him to locate shape cards by identifying the number of sides and corners. "Can you find the shape that has five sides and five corners?"  For the colored cards I was asking him to identify the primary colors or colors that when combined can make a different color. "Can you find the two cards  that mix together to make green?
By the end of the activity Ellie was also finding the shapes based on the number of sides and corners! It's fun to see how any simple activity, like this one, can incorporate so many different learning objectives.

Learning Objectives Covered: (in about 15 minutes)

1. Counting/Identifying Numbers
2. Identifying Colors
3. Identifying and Naming Shapes 
4. Identifying Different Properties of Shapes
5. Communication Skills (Formulating Questions for Each Other)
6. Teamwork!