Do you want your children to have a fun-filled summer? Absolutely! However, you also want your kids to use their brains and keep their math skills sharp. The summer slide—the knowledge students lose in the three months they are out of school—is real, and any steps you can take to get your kids out of the pool, at least for a little while, and working on some math games, will put them that much ahead when school resumes.
However, the challenge in introducing cool math for kids this summer is to make sure the math is indeed cool. Throwing down some worksheets in front of your child when the sun is shining and the pool looks so inviting may be met with resistance, to say the least. An iPad-based tutoring program can make summer math seem less like work and more like fun. And math games—not just the digital variety, but also ones you play in the real world—are great for sneaking in some math into play time. Here are five math games that introduce cool math for kids without them even realizing it:
1. Cribbage
Card games are terrific options as cool math for kids. War, 21, Crazy Eights, and Rummy 500 are among the choices that use or can be modified to include math. Cribbage is another game that is easy to play (with a little patience, younger grade-schoolers can learn it) and requires plenty of adding (especially to 15) and counting. It’s also great for safety breaks at the pool—you can get a few hands played before kids are allowed back into the water.
2. Math Scavenger Hunt
This is a fun activity for road trips, at the amusement park, or anywhere you might be this summer. Each player writes the numbers 1 to 20 on a sheet of paper or in a notebook, then looks for those numbers, either in signs (e.g., Interstate 15) or by counting objects they see (e.g., “Look, there’s four lifeguards watching the pool!”). First player to cross off every number wins.
