How You Can Learn Math While You Play with It
For most people, math is usually associated with something tedious, complex, and obscure. Something that makes students pore over the math textbooks up till late. But can math be actually fun and entertaining? And if yes, what brings those hilarious yet cognitive experiences into the math learning process?
If you look at math problems closely, you will see that math is entirely about discovering, exploring, and researching. With the correct approach, solving math problems can become an exciting adventure that will contribute immensely to absorbing new material and mastering math skills.
There are plenty of ways to bring a playful mood to your math lessons: board and video games, 4th grade math online that are stuffed with interactive activities, real-live communication with a math tutor, card plays, thematic art projects, etc. All you need to do is choose what suits you best and helps you absorb the studied material quickly and effortlessly.
Golden rules to make the math learning process playful
- It may be challenging to achieve playfulness in studying math without sacrificing its essential concept principles’ conveyance. Making a game feel like a game requires an excellent understanding of a subject. A tutor or a parent needs to know how to apply a math topic to put it in a simple, playful, and enjoyable way.
- Say “no” to timed math activities. They can be fun and venturesome, but this principle doesn’t work with math learning.
- Don’t bombard students with questions. Let them be explorers and researchers who discover a new concept step by step. Engage kids to share their thoughts and come up with possible solutions, even if they are not always right.
Ways to make math learning playful
There are plenty of methods to turn math classes into an exciting adventure. Let’s check the most efficient ones.
1. Interactive online math lessons
Online learning unlocks fantastic tools for game-based learning. Numerous websites offer a myriad of math curriculum-aligned games that will help you boost your math skills. Tutoring websites prove to be even more effective. All of them follow a personalized 1-to-1 approach to lessons, which ensures a proper focus on the needs and requirements of a particular student through special online math programs for kids. The educational approach of Brighterly.com, which tops the list of interactive resources helping to learn math online, is based on practicing each topic via exciting journeys to various eras such as the Ice Age, Ancient Egypt, Industrial Revolution, Scientific Revolution, and others. Targeting PreK-8 grade kids, the website tends to explain complex concepts through fantastic adventures with pleasant prizes at the checkout. Brighterly.com is terrific proof that math can and should be fun.
2. Personalized math tutoring
Individualized communication about math topics can be highly effective for learning. An experienced tutor can easily integrate math ideas into real-life situations that their student will eagerly support. In such a way, the discussion will be based on daily topics with math concepts in the background. This approach demonstrates close liaisons between math and the real world and gives students a better understanding of the actual mathematics purpose.
3. Board Games
Good old-fashioned board games can be of great help in mastering math skills. Lately, they made an unexpected rebound both offline and online. Board games develop calculating skills and logical thinking and engage kids to think several steps ahead.
4. Logic games
Brain teasers, puzzles, and riddles are an integral part of math learning for those who seek to add playfulness to their lessons. They are perfect for boosting kids’ brainpower with scientific practice and making them think outside the box. All these activities motivate schoolers to move to a higher level of mathematical thinking and keep them entertained and engaged in studying essential math concepts.
5. Moving activities
Successfully rotated math activities contribute to better memorizing of the recently introduced material and mastering new skills. Integration of moving-based activities in lessons may be a fantastic idea to entertain kids while practicing math operations. Indoor or outdoor games are never dull and develop teamwork, communication, and competitiveness.
6. Art projects
A large amount of math is involved in art. Mathematics not only explains angles and perspectives but also is considered a pinnacle of human creativity. If your kid is fond of art, you may explain math problems through their favorite activities. Dealing with creating Celtic knotwork, impossible objects, or graphic labyrinths reinforces accurate measuring and constructing skills, helps focus on the tiniest details, and promotes simple reflective symmetry. To learn math planet concepts, art fans may practice their compasses and the idea of modulo arithmetic. Those, who like paper-folding lessons, are to take great advantage of mastering tessellation and layering of various shapes and sizes.
7. Video games
No one can deny kids’ love of video games. This type of activity is beyond the competition. Thus, mixing math concepts with video play can be a perfect way to make kids master mathematics online. There are lots of exciting math-based games on the Internet. Usually, they are split into various categories based on topics practiced, kids’ age, and grades. Find myriad activities for learning algebra, geometry, numbers, and even linear equations with powerful online tools combining logic with fun.
To wrap up
Games are an excellent and highly efficient tool to boost math knowledge and master essential math skills in a playful, easy-going environment. They give more freedom and motivate kids to share their thoughts, explore new concepts, and apply math in daily life. More and more teachers and individual math tutors add math-centered games into the curriculum, which proves their dazzling effect on cognitive understanding.