Fun maths games to play in the car
There’s no better way to help your children develop their maths skills and understanding than by encouraging them to use them in everyday contexts.
There are great opportunities to do this in the car.
It’s easy to keep an old calculator, a few small notebooks and some pencils in the glove box.
The notebooks can be used to jot down results and the calculator can be used for checking answers.
Many maths games focus on calculating but it’s important to remember that calculation is just one aspect of maths. Here are some purposeful maths games that help develop some of the other important aspects of maths, such as understanding numbers and representing problems accurately.
1 minute games
Read and say numbers around you, eg in the car, or on road signs, other vehicles or buildings
Ask one child to be the time-keeper, a second child to keep a tally, and a third child to read and say all the numbers he can see within a minute. Give everyone a turn to do each of these.
Counting forwards
Choose a starting number that’s manageable for everyone and take turns to say the next numbers as far forwards as possible within a minute.
Counting backwards
Start a bit lower and see how far backwards you can get within a minute, taking turns to say the numbers.
Skip counting
Decide what to skip count by (eg by 2s), a direction (eg forwards) and a starting point (eg 10).
Ask one person to be the timer. Take turns to say the next number as you skip count as far as possible within a minute.
3 minute games
Explore combinations to 10 (for 5-7 year old children)
Ask each child to hide his hands behind his back. Then ask him to tuck some fingers in and leave the rest stretched out, eg 2 fingers stretched out and 8 fingers tucked in. When everyone is ready, ask, eg ‘Who has 2 fingers stretched out?’ Whoever has this arrangement shows his hands, and the other children have to work out how many of his fingers are tucked under.
Then repeat from the start & ask, eg ‘Who has 3 fingers stretched out?’
Special numbers (for 8-12 year old children)
Ask each child to choose a number they have seen somewhere along the way and write down as many partitions of that number as they can within 3 minutes.
eg If a child chooses 35 as his special number, he might write some or all of patterns such as 34+1, 33+2, 32+3, 31+4 etc
or 10+10+10+5, 10+10+10+4+1
or 36-1, 37-2, 38-3
or any other number facts they come up with about his special number.
Give younger children a one-minute headstart. Ask one child to use the calculator to check the winner’s partitions are correct.
5 minute games
Which is the most popular car colour?
Allocate one car colour per child, and give each child a notebook and pencil. Ask them to record their cars for 5 minutes, using a tally. Then ask the eldest to draw a simple column graph showing each person’s result.
Making up story problems
Make up an easy addition or subtraction word problem about the things you’re seeing on your journey.
eg There were some sheep in a paddock. 9 more jumped over the gate to join them. Then there were 13. How many were there to start with?
Ask one child to turn that story into a representative number sentence, ie ? + 9 = 13, and another child to tell you how they’d calculate the answer, eg 9 + (4) = 13 (counting on from 9) or 13 – (4) = 9 (counting back from 13)…or any other way.
Then give one of the children a turn at making up a similar type story about something else they see, and choose someone else to turn it into a representative number sentence, and another person to say how they’d calculate the answer.
How many windows?
When you’re parked in the city, there are usually plenty of windows to count, and it can be a good way to introduce the idea of arrays. Ask how many windows there are in a row, and how many in a column. Ask how many windows are in a building. A child with early maths understanding will count each window. A child at a slightly higher level will count the number in one row and add this number repeatedly for the each of the rows (repeated addition). A child with reasonably developed primary maths understanding will multiply the number of windows in a row by the number of windows in a column, using his knowledge of multiplication facts.
Please share any maths games you enjoy playing while you’re out in the car!
