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Common criticisms of using games in math classroom sound like, "I want my child to learn academics," "If I wanted them to play games, I would keep them at home," "I am not paying tax dollars (or tuition) to have my child play games all day," and the ever popular, "I learned math just fine without all this stuff, there is nothing wrong with old fashioned drill, drill drill." The reality is you will end up with more drill time when playing a game, all accomplished in a positive success driven atmosphere that will keep the students engaged and work on integrating skills with higher level thinking skills.
Simple drill works well for memorizing facts for many students. For some their learning styles are such that drill alone is not enough. With time and enough drill, practice and exposure these fact are learned. Any good math teacher will use a variety of strategies to help with memorizing facts. Manipulating blocks, writing facts down, singing facts to music are alternative ways to use. Playing games in the math classroom is an amazing way to get multiple repetitions of facts; a child will happily read the same fact ten times when playing a game, yet groan when a flash drill card appears even a second time.
Basic drills do not teach application of math facts. There is a good chance those same people who learned facts perfectly fine the old fashioned way, also despised the dreaded "story problems." Fortunately today most math programs integrate the "story problem" immediately into the fact drills taking the words story problem out of the picture. Games are a perfect way to provide even more practice applying the basic skills in real life situations. A board game might include a space to land on where an additional math question needs solved; a card game could be designed around gathering enough data to solve a particular problem.
Math is such an important life skill, it is important not to make that class a dreaded, stressful, or boring experience. Games in the math classroom designed to reinforce skills and drill in a challenging yet interesting and fun environment will help keep the student engaged in a positive way and motivated to keep on learning. Printable math games designed for one or two people can help build self motivation and even be sent home to download and play in a fun atmosphere while reinforcing crucial skills.
Incorporating games into a rich overall healthy integrated curriculum is a valid way to provide educational benefit to all students and is only a waste of time when the skills are not relevant, the game is silly, or if over done. With technology available today, teachers are building a library of digital, downloadable activities that make providing challenging but fun math games for the math classroom easier to do. Everyone, the student, the teacher and the parent will experience the educational benefit of having a variety of fun math games.
Thanks To : Easter Product Store
