Math Board Games
It has me thinking about the power of teaching students in our classrooms positive self-talk, or pep talks.
One of my favorite things to do at the end of the year in math is to have students create a board game incorporating math concepts taught throughout the year. This unit centers around joy and encourages deep problem solving and planning skills. It’s a highly engaging unit, with lots of student choice! And at the end of the unit, students have a math review game to take home to play with their family over the summer! A win for everyone.
When I introduce the unit, I first have students explore various types of games. We bring in board games and card games from our homes. We raid our inside recess cabinet for our favorites. And then we play! We spend the first day of the unit playing games in order to research how games work. We play a little, then come back together and create a list of elements of a game. Then we go play some more and refine this list.
Once we have this baseline of what’s in a game, we move on to brainstorming a list of math concepts taught this year. I’ve done this in different ways, but my favorite way is to incorporate a write around the room for students to remember all that they have learned in math. I’ll invite students to name math concepts, then record them on large pieces of paper (IE chart paper or construction paper). One concept per page. We spread these out around the room.
Next, each student, with market in hand, walks around to the pages and writes all that they remember down. We use these charts as a way to review and determine the concepts that go into our games.
Before we start building the games, we go over the nonnegotiable. When creating a game, there are a few rules we come up with as a class.
The game must include the game elements.
The game must include a math concept.
The game must be created from recycled materials.
Once we come up with the ground rules, it’s time to create! Students get to choose if they want to work alone, with a partner, or group of three. It’s totally up to them what materials they use, what math concept they include, and what the rules are.
Last year, my students had so much fun working on their games. We spent a few days creating, maker space style in our classroom, then a few more days on the math concept element. It was important that they write up the rules and use published game rules as their mentor texts (hello literacy!)
To celebrate our hard work, we invited another Second grade classroom to come play our games.
If we had more time, it would have been great to revise our games based on the trial run with the other class. But of course field day and end of the year celebrations got in the way!
The objective of this end of year unit is to celebrate all of the math students have mastered throughout the year. It’s a chance to invite creativity into your classrooms and reward students for all of their hard work.
I’d love to hear how you’ve incorporated an honorable closure into your math workshop! Let us know your great ideas.
