Last Updated on October 11, 2023 by Editorial Team
Inculcating skills and lessons in a young mind is easy and expedient. Perhaps this is why kids are taught the fundamentals of life like the alphabet and numbers as a part of academics as well as personal growth. But, every child has a unique pace. So, the question remains, how to teach kids about these fundamental lessons effectively?
Games might be the answer! Games have turned out to be a great way to create a substantial impact on them, and the advent of play-based pedagogy has improved the learning experience.
Many online games and gaming platforms are available that make kids learn numbers and operations via exciting games. This post will help you recognize the importance of games for arithmetic learning and the ten best online games for understanding numbers and operations.
Need for a game-based approach for learning numbers & operations
Numbers help you quantify. When? Or How many? These questions need answers expressed via numbers. Operations are simple calculations like addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication with numbers, which are essential parts of day-to-day life.
Adding two sets of crayons, say 5 and 3, then, we get a group of 8 crayons. On the other hand, giving away two crayons from 5 leaves us with three crayons. All these important operations form an essential part of a kid’s mathematical and real-life learning, and students need to learn number sense in this context.
Psychologically, learning numbers improves confidence and develops flexible thinking in kids. Kids learn how everything around them can be interpreted in the language of numbers.
So, when a concept so useful in our lives has to be taught, we have to look at effective ways to do so. Online/digital games are a great source of entertainment, use them for teaching, and they become a great source of infotainment. Using fun games to teach numbers and operations adds to the learning procedure.
Criteria we used for curating the list
Variety can often bewilder; hence, we decided to choose the best games for learning numbers and operations. Here are the few factors that we considered before recommending the games-
- Teaching and Testing: Games should be such that they give the children a thrill, but at the same time, they should be excellent testing mediums for the children. Games that can quiz the student’s knowledge about a topic have become the future of examinations.
- Learning Outcomes: Most games teach something or the other; even the games just for fun teach children some skill or the other. But when it comes to learning games, special attention must be given to what exactly the game is teaching and whether that would come in handy at the current stage.
- Technical Aspects: Games are for learning and fun. In this digital generation, children are technologically ahead of time; however, the games should be such that they are clearly visible, audible, and provide an aesthetic feel to the child.
- Level of the Student: Generally, numbers and mathematical operations are learned in junior classes; hence, the games should be according to the level of the child, so that they comprehend well.
- Cause of the Game: While games are usually played for entertainment purposes, a criterion behind choosing these games was the cause of the game. Since these are games dedicated to numbers and mathematical operations, they not only solve the purpose of entertainment but also come with the purpose of educating.
Online games for learning numbers and operations
1. Comparing Quiz
Comparing Quiz is a judging game designed for grade 1 students. Using numbers from 1 to 20, the kid needs to comprehend the number line to compare the two numbers shown. This game gives a deeper understanding of the number line —how it works and counts.
The game revolves around the concept of ‘less than’ and ‘greater than’. This is an interactive maths quiz game, which helps students understand the concept of what comes before and after well. Best suited for junior classes, these concepts help with a better understanding of mathematics, as a whole.
2. Treasure Driving
Treasure Driving is a comparison game for kindergarten students. A set of numbers—between 0 to 20— is displayed in which the player (kid) needs to find the largest and the smallest integer. For every correct answer, the player will move a step closer to the treasury.
By clicking on the number and correctly identifying it, students get a good hang of numbers, as they need to use the number sense, which helps with building many mathematical concepts.
3. Find the Total
This game teaches addition to a child. Addition is the first operation that students learn. The operation is simplified in the form of animation to make counting and adding easy for the players. In this game, the player uses the ‘Count all and add’ strategy for the answer. This game gives the students options to solve the problems and learn otherwise complex mathematical operations.
4. Remove to Match
Remove to Match is a subtraction teaching game that uses the animated character ‘Blu’. Blu is in a dark cave, always ready for adventure. The player needs to help Blu using visual help and subtract the given numbers. This game ensures a solid understanding of subtraction since kids learn to apply the count-out strategy to solve the problems.
5. 2048
Being a fun number operation game, the goal of this game is to build the number 2048 by combining two numbers. But the catch here is that the numbers should be of the same value. Whenever you bring two numbers together, they combine.
For example, when you bring the blocks of 8 and 8 together, they become one block with the number 16. When the player keeps on combining the numbers, ultimately, 2048 is formed, and that’s how you win the game!
6. Brainie
In this game, you would have to combine numbers to form a number displayed on the screen. This would be possible only by using multiple mathematical operations at different levels. As the target number pops up on the screen, different number operations would also keep coming, and the user would have to perform the given task. The game’s ultimate goal is to move to the next level by solving the problem on the current level.
7. Zogs and Monsters
This is the ultimate addition game, as the player needs to solve the problems given at the bottom right of the game. With multiple choices given, the player needs to choose the right answer by tapping. By tapping twice, the player would be able to grab the answer. But be careful, there are monsters that must be kept away if you are here to win!
8. Defeat the Math Monster
Mathematics can be a monster for a lot of kids out there, but in this game, the kids need to defeat the monster by using the four mathematical operations. When the player can get all the 15 correct answers, the math monster gets defeated, and the player can collect the ancient Mayan treasure. But, it’s not as easy as it looks. As you move closer to the target, the monster becomes more and more agile, and crossing the levels will not be as easy once you have come a long way.
Effective ways of using these games for better results
Leaving blackboard and book teaching behind, an interactive approach has become the future of education. This is the approach in which they do not have to teach the student through traditional methods, but rather, through a new and much more participative way. One of the key aspects of this new modus operandi of teaching is educating through games.
Educators and parents can use the games mentioned above in the following ways-
- Classroom Teaching: Teachers, while teaching addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, can introduce a game in the class so that students comprehend better. Indulging students in a game while explaining the subject would help students understand it more and retain it forever.
- Activity-Based Homeworks: As much as students run from the name of homework when teachers give games as homework, students would run and do it ecstatically. Let’s not forget, that the main idea behind homework is to help the student hold on to a subject, and this can be done easily with the help of these games.
- Homeschoolers: Teachers often help students understand a concept through group activities in a physical school, but this cannot be the case with homeschoolers. Therefore, introducing games while they learn can be a fun way to learn a new concept like mathematical operations, as this is one concept they have to use for a lifetime.
- Quizzes or Tests: Students detest exams, but what if you can make exams fun? The ultimate goal of exams is to test whether a student has understood the concept well or not. When this comprehension assessment is taken through games, it’s a win-win situation at both ends. The educators understand how aware the student is of the particular concept; simultaneously, the students get to play games and learn more about the concepts.
Summing up
Math and numbers would become an integral part of an adult’s life, so it makes perfectly natural sense to help a young child master them. Gamification is a fun way to help a child become friends with numerals. These games encourage play-based pedagogy to make learning easier and interactive. We hope these games help you and your ward explore mathematics as the fun subject it is.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,