I
hear it all the time from my colleagues… Why are your students playing
games? I am here to tell you that having
math games as part of your math centers, or
if you don’t do centers, a part of your daily routine is a vital component
to your students’ learning.
Games
allow students the opportunity to deepen their
mathematical understanding and reasoning. Students will begin to notice patterns, relationships, and strategies.
1) By playing
games students find different strategies for solving
problems and deepen their understanding of numbers.
2)
When played repeatedly, games
support students’ development of computational fluency.
3) Games
allow opportunities
for practice, without
the need for teachers to provide
the problems. You can then observe and work
with individuals or small groups of students.
Engage Your Students!
An
engaging way
to introduce a game to the class is for the you
to play the game against the class.
Or if the game doesn’t allow for
whole class participation, make the time to play with a group a students while
the rest is watching. After 10 minutes,
have each student who was playing select a student who was watching to take
their place.
Remember
to always vary or modify the game
to meet the needs of your learners.
Hold Your Students Accountable
After
playing a game, have students reflect by
having them
write about in
a mathematics notebook or journal.
I typically post one of the following questions each week by the game
center, and in order to be allowed to continue playing the following week, they
need to answer the question in COMPLETE SENTENCES.
1) What
skill did you review and practice?
2) Which
strategies did you use while
playing the game?
3)
If you were to play the game a
second time, what different strategies would you use to be more successful?
4) How
could you change the game to make it more challenging?
What
do you think? Do you allow your students
to play math games in the classroom?
What suggestions do you have to help fellow teachers? Please leave your ideas in the comment
section below. I look forward to reading your ideas.
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