The following games can be played at home to reinforce skills that have been
introduced in math. Enjoy playing!
*Top-It
This is a two player game. Take the deck of number cards sent home with
your child and shuffle them. Place the stack face down. Each person takes
a card from the top of the deck and reads it aloud. Whoever has the larger
number takes both cards. When all cards have been drawn, the player with
the most cards marks a tally under the win column and the other player makes
a tally under the lose column.
*Dice Roll and Tally Game
Before beginning play, each partnership sets up a half sheet with the
numbers 1-6 and spaces for tallies. The child rolls the dice and puts a
tally mark next to the appropriate number on the sheet. The child can
continue this for as long as he/she would like. The child can also try to
guess which number will end up with the most tally marks.
*Penny/Dice Game
Partners pool their pennies to make 20. Take turns rolling the die
and picking up as many pennies as the number of die. To pick up the last
pennies, the number on the die must match the number of pennies remaining.
*Penny Grab Game
Partners combine their pennies (you can use any amount of pennies).
Each grabs a handful, counts, and records the amount using cent and dollar
notations. For example, 13 pennies would be recorded as both 13(cents sign)
and $.13.
*Two-Fisted Pennies Game
Children count out 10 pennies and split them between their two
hands. Help your youngster identify his/her left and right hand. For
example: My left hand has 1 and my right hand has 9; left hand has 3 and
right hand has 7, etc. Repeat with other numbers of pennies.
*Penny/Nickel Exchange Game
Partners make a pile of 40 pennies and 8 nickels. This pile is the
bank. Players take turns rolling a die and collecting the pennies from the
bank. As players acquire 5 or more pennies, they say “exchange” and turn in
5 pennies for a nickel. The game ends when the bank is empty.
*Domino Top-It
Each player can start with any even number of dominoes. Players place
all dominoes face down between partners. Each player chooses a domino and
finds the total number of dots. The player with the larger total gets both
dominoes. Play until all the dominoes are gone.
