Looking for math-y games for kids?

Here are three that we’ve really enjoyed:

(1) Equilibrio

This game has been especially popular with the kids on our street and is visiting its 3rd house since we got it!

A review of Equilibrio by Fox Mind Games

(2) Prime Climb

I learned about this game from a Dan Anderson tweet:

Prime climb arrived! pic.twitter.com/ORj08ceuGp

— Dan Anderson (@dandersod) December 2, 2014

This is a neat game that has lots of fun strategies relating to simple arithmetic.

A review of Primb Climb by Math For Love

(3) Terzetto

A fun game that helps kids play around with patterns and rotations.   This game is my younger son’s favorite game 🙂

A Review of Terzetto by Gamewright

 

Dividing Fractions

Ran across an basic fraction division problem on an old AMC 8 today.

Problem #12 from the 1989 AMC 8 (AJHME).

The problem is easy to state:

Evaluate

When my son dove in to the problem he immediately remembered the “flip the denominator” rule. That rule makes pretty much takes care of solving the problem. BUT, after he got the answer I asked him if he knew why the rule was true. He said that he didn’t know.

So, we spent the last couple of minutes in the video talking about why it was true:

When I first introduced fraction division to him, we looked at flipping the denominator and also a second approach involving snap cubes. I guess the “flipping the denominator” rule is a lot easier to remember, but I still remember the fun we had making this video 🙂