- While a little unconventional, video games can be used as a fun and effective teaching tool for children.
- Here I highlight five video games—Moose Math, Tami’s Tower, Math Blaster, Prodigy, and Minecraft—for building and reviewing skills in math.
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One of my family’s favorite activities is playing games. We enjoy a variety of different games, but we all have a soft spot for video games. Since my kids love to play video games, I started using these types of games as a teaching tool. This allows my kids to learn, review, and practice certain concepts and ideas in a fun and engaging way. It also allows me to use a fun activity as a way of reinforcing lessons instead of using worksheets or videos. I have used many different games over the years with my three children. Here I have compiled my top 5 favorite math-inspired video games for elementary students.
1. Moose Math
Skills: Counting, Addition, Subtraction, Sorting, and Geometry
Recommended Ages: 3-7
Format: App
Moose Math is a mathematical adventure game that engages children in counting, addition, subtraction, sorting, geometry and more with bright colors, adorable friends, and interesting play. It features 5 different activities: Moose Juice, Paint Pet, Pet Bingo, Lost and Found, and Dot-to-Dot. Each activity offers a different way to play with numbers and practice mathematical concepts. The game also offers a report card so that teachers can monitor progress.
In this app your child is tasked with building and decorating their own town. Advancing through the levels of each activity awards your child with the tools and decorations to make their town their own. This helps to promote creativity and a sense of accomplishment all while reinforcing math lessons.
2. Tami’s Tower: Let’s Think About Engineering
Skills: Geometry
Recommended Ages: 4-8
Format: Online and App
Tami’s Tower, from the Smithsonian Science Education Center, is an online geometry- based game that engages children with a bright and colorful jungle background and an adorable golden lion tamarin named Tami. It introduces students to engineering principles and promotes problem solving skills. It also offers an in-game summary so that teachers can assess their student’s responses and check their progress.
The premise of this game is that Tami the tamarin is hungry for lunch and needs your child’s help to reach the fruit in the trees. To get to the fruit your child must build a tower with the given geometric shapes to reach a given line. However, there are other animals in the jungle that can knock down the tower as they are running past. Can your child use engineering skills and critical thinking to build a tower that will stand up to the challenge?
3. Math Blaster
Skills: Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division
Recommended Ages: 4-12
Format: Online and Console
The Math Blaster series of games were first introduced in the early 1980’s. There are multiple games and titles in the series all aimed at making learning math fun and engaging for young students. These games combine an arcade-style gameplay with math exercises. Different versions and titles target different age groups, so finding the right game for your student will depend on whether you want to reinforce current grade-level lessons, review previous grade-level units, or challenge your child.
These games are classic blaster, platform-based arcade fun. They each follow a story that is usually futuristic or adventurous in theme and are generally fast paced. They really inspire your kids to improve their speed and accuracy in the designated basic arithmetic operations all while building mathematical confidence and reinforcing lessons.
4. Prodigy
Skills: Basic Arithmetic, Geometry, Fractions, Algebra, and more
Recommended Ages: 6-13
Format: online and app
Prodigy is a fantasy, role-playing game where adaptive math practice meets engaging learning. This game is an online multiplayer game where your kids can play with their friends in a secure and safe online environment while reinforcing math concepts aligned to your curriculum. You can set assignments and test new skills all while they play. With a teacher account (which is free) you will get reports of your student’s progress, as well as a twice-yearly snapshot detailing your child’s areas of improvement.
In this game, your child is a witch or wizard who must battle to protect the land by answering adaptive math questions of your chosen standards. They will get to explore an exciting land, complete quests, and rescue adorable pets all while learning and practicing math skills. If your child enjoys adventure games or platformers like my son does, they will LOVE this game.
5. Minecraft
Skills: Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication, Division, Area, and Perimeter
Recommended Ages: 7+
Format: PC and Console
Minecraft is a sandbox build and explore game that came out in 2011 and immediatly rose in fame. In fact, it is one of the bestselling video games of all time. While it is not technically a game designed for learning math, it can easily be used to reinforce mathematical concepts such as basic arithmetic, area and perimeter due to the building elements of the game.
In this game your child can collect resources, create amazing builds and explore the world around them. While building, your child will need to calculate how many blocks of each resource that they will need to make their creations. This requires both critical thinking and mathematical skills. And while this game is not set up as a learning tool, I have found that I can add my own flare to the game that my kids love and give them specific tasks to complete that help them practice their math skills without even realizing it.
I hope this blog encourages you to add some math video games to your teacher’s tool bag. If you found this blog helpful, please consider subscribing and liking this post as it will help to grow the community as well as let me know which type of posts are more beneficial for you. If you are looking for some additional games to help your child learn while playing, check out my My Top 5: Educational Games to Play With Elementary Students blog.
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Do you and your family have some favorite video games that you like to use so that your children can play while they learn? Please share your favorites with the community in the comments below.
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