Number sense can be a difficult concept to teach students. Plus, it can become redundant and a little bit boring. However, if you use number sense games, your students will start to have a lot of fun while they learn! Number sense games are simple and can be done using things you have in your classroom already or can easily purchase at a dollar store.
What is Number Sense?
Number sense is a student’s ability to make connections between numbers quickly. This means they can visualize and talk about what they know about numbers, take numbers apart, and mental math with real-life math problems. To help build this skill, number sense games are perfect!
Roll the Number Sense Dice!
One of the easiest ways to practician number sense is with dice. Dice are perfect to use because you can easily differentiate by using fewer dice or more dice.
Roll and Match
The first number sense game you can place with dice is roll and match. Students roll the dice and math the number with mini erasers. You can get your mini erasers at the dollar store or grab some things out of your math junk to use instead of erasers. Then students can roll two dice and create the number. As the game progresses, keeping adding more dice so students must put more numbers together.
Dotzi
Another fun number sense game you can play is Dotzi. With this game, students roll four dice and try to put them in numerical order. Just like with roll and match, you can add dice to the game (up to six). Students keep rolling the dice until they get all the dice in order.
Deal Out Number Sense Games
While dice are super simple, they can be a bit noisy! If you need a little bit quieter, you can use cards to play number sense games. Again, just like with the dice, you can differentiate with playing cards.
Ordering Numbers
Cards are great for number recognition games. Have students order their numbers and differentiate with grade and ability. In the early grades, you might want to give students numbers to five, then 10. In second grade, numbers to 100 and in third grade numbers to 1000. With this game, you can write on the cards to get the higher numbers.
Go Fish!
A great way to work on number recognition is to let students play Go Fish. Again, this is an easy way to differentiate instruction as well based on how high of numbers you give them. Students must not only recognize numbers mentally, but they also have to be able to name them as well. When I play this with my students, I use the numbers Ace to 9 and explain that ace is number one. With older students, I will use higher numbers and explain what numbers correlate with the face cards.
Number sense is an important skill that all students need to have to be successful in math. Using dice and playing cards is a great way to use manipulatives in math, but also a great way to have fun. Having games students can play in centers, during morning work time, or when they get done with work early is a great way for students to learn and have fun!
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