20 Maths Games For Young Children: Free eBook

Please note, this post was written in 2020 and I no longer update this website.

This remote teaching/homeschool business is tough for everyone, isn’t it?

Teachers are scrambling to provide a remote learning curriculum with little preparation or warning. Meanwhile, parents are adjusting to isolation, working from home, and homeschooling.

After reading my post 10 Tips For Parents Homeschooling Young Children, some friends and members of my professional learning network asked me for more ideas for activities.

Sadly, there are a lot of people out there who are relying on worksheets to help their children learn. In fact, I recently came across a Facebook group designed for sharing worksheets with 140,000+ members!

The old worksheet debate… sometimes they are good. But they are not a silver bullet and personally I think there are a lot more low-quality worksheets than high-quality.

But the good news is you don’t need to use worksheets to help your children learn. Don’t overlook the power of games!

My Free eBook: 20 Maths Games for 5-8 Year Olds

I’ve put together a collection of 20 math games to help young children learn about maths while having fun with family members at home.

These games are tried and tested with my own children (aged 5 and 6) and/or past students (aged 5-10).

The games were chosen as they:

• Require equipment you probably have at home
• Are easy to understand and play
• Help children learn and reinforce basic mathematical skills and understandings
• Are fun

>> Click here to download the PDF

Note: You do not need to request access to this PDF as it’s available to anyone with the link. If you’re having trouble, please don’t request access. Please log out of your school email address and try again (your school email account may be blocking access). 😊

The suggested age range (5-8) is just a guide and it’s expected that teachers and caregivers will be able to judge which games will suit individual children. Many of the games can be varied to make them easier or harder. Get creative!

You’re welcome to share the book but please don’t copy it!

This book has an Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license. 

In plain English, this means you can share the book as long as you give credit to my work, use it for non-commercial purposes (you definitely can’t sell it), and don’t make derivatives (your own version).

You can email this book to parents, share it on social media with attribution, publish it on your school website and so on.

Note: As is the nature of maths games, it’s impossible to credit an original creator when they’ve been used and adapted in classrooms for years. I’ve credited where possible but I honestly don’t know where most of the games have come from and I’ve used variations of them for 15+ years. 

A Disappointing Experience

After sharing this book, I was so shocked to see someone cutting and pasting the whole thing into their own document with a fancy border and sharing it on social media as their own work!

During such a difficult time it is a joy to be able to help people in a small way to make teaching and homeschooling easier. It’s disappointing when people take advantage of this.

Please feel free to share this book with anyone who might find it helpful but please remember it’s a true labour of love that involved hours of work! Please respect copyright.

Conclusion

Teaching young children maths doesn’t have to be complicated and it doesn’t have to always involve worksheets.

The 20 games can be repeated over and over. If you played one game per day on weekdays, that will cover you for about a month!

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