This eBook is proudly brought to you by

Anna Perkins

www.coolmathgameskids.net

Contents
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 2nd Grade Math 4th Grade Math Games Elementary Math Lesson Plans Homework Math Math Activities Math Assessment Test Math Elementary Worksheets Math Games Math Homework Help

10. Math Lessons 11. Fun math games 4 kids 12. Why are math games effective? 13. What research says? 14. Selecting the right games for your kids:

www.coolmathgameskids.net

2nd Grade Math

When it comes to looking for ways to help the second grader who lives in your house do better in school, there are two concepts that you can count on being true and within those two concepts may lie the answer to your child's math problems. Those concepts are (1) your second grader may hate math but (2) they love being on the internet and playing with the computer. In actual fact, your child doesnt really hate math itself. But the academic teaching of math at a second grade level often puts children off simply because math concepts are new to them and the methods to teach them are sometimes dry and abstract. That second basic principle is one you no doubt had a loud amen to share because you know your youngster loves to play on the home computer and be on the internet. The reason that rule can be stated so confidently is that virtually all young people love computers and the fun they can have using online games and other resources modern technology has made available to us all. As parents, we have to be wary so our kids are safe online and the amount the kids love to be online can be a real frustration. But that same love of computers can be a salvation of your second graders math success in school if we use the internet intelligently and guide the kids to the right kind of web sites. There are ample web sites that take the basic math principles that second graders must deal with and integrates games, quizzes, puzzles and other fun activities to make the learning process far more enjoyable than the kids experience in the academic situation at school. Some of these sites still utilize standard math quizzes and teaching styles but they do so on a colorful and interactive screen. It really is amazing how much children at this age respond to even something as basic as an online quiz when they can give the right answer and see a visual celebration or hear a happy tune when they get it right. Other math software products or online educational sites use more creative math games that create interactive story problems that a math principle must be utilized to solve the puzzle and win the game. The depth and quantity of games, puzzles and story problems that sites like this will provide to your young mathematician is just the thing to keep them coming back week after week.

www.coolmathgameskids.net

In most cases there will be a menu of dozens of games and fun activities built around each basic math concept. Dont be surprised if you leave your child to explore that math idea only to find that they played every game on the site and were eager to move on to next week's lesson to have new toys to play with on their math gaming software or web sites. Also dont be surprised that when your second grader gets that kind of excitement about math because he or she is enjoying these web sites that you see their math grades shoot to the top and their enjoyment and confidence in math become rock solid just like you always want it to be for them. That, to say the least, is an outstanding use of the internet.

4th Grade Math Games

The fourth grade is a big year for students in elementary school because it is the year that the curriculum for math that they have ahead of them includes learning multiplication and eventually division. While at the earlier grade levels, the students did begin to appreciate number relationships, that awareness of the depth and the scope of the diversity of the math universe expands tremendously when the students get an understanding of these two core math principles. Stepping from third to fourth grade is more than just a one year jump. It is the beginning of the child's really sophistication of their knowledge of math. Parents and teachers of fourth graders who have been hands on in helping the kids learn the very basic number principles should redouble those efforts in the fourth grade because many young people stall out trying to grasp the concepts of multiplication and division. And despite many new advances in learning multiplication, there still is no substitute for memorizing the multiplication tables to lay that groundwork for a lifetime of success in math. There are a number of helps that parents can use to move the process of getting those math tables down for their fourth grader just learning multiplication. Posters can be hung in the child's room that are colorful and that utilize the youngsters favorite television star or cartoon characters as they surround the various tables that need to be memorized. Since children love to be read to, you can find many age appropriate books where happy and comical characters work parts of the multiplication table into a story.

www.coolmathgameskids.net

These are good small steps forward that put off the dreaded drilling with flash cards that is so difficult and is often a tedious method for learning these skills. It also helps to make the multiplication tables a fun part of family life by using them as a game in many situations. You can create songs of various tables to sing in the car on a long road trip. Or it can be a challenge game that calls on the youngster to "think fast" when dad suddenly surprises him or her with "think fast eight times nine". The fun of turning those boring tables into a part of the fun of family life is often all it takes to eventually get all of the tables under control. These are just a few simple methods that can be used to put off or avoid completely the specter of drilling using flash cards that everybody hates. Your child's fourth grade teacher may have many more interesting games that can be used to incorporate the multiplication tables into a fun activity. And that only scratches the surface because, like everything else, the internet is overflowing with great online games that will do a great job of making the multiplication tables roll off your fourth graders tongue like he was saying his name. Its just a matter of looking for creative and fun alternatives that can make even something boring like learning the math tables a happy and memorable experience for parents and child alike.

Elementary Math Lesson Plans

A lesson plan for teaching math to elementary school children must have two priorities that seem to be at cross purposes. The plan must enable the teacher to be totally prepared not only for each day's curriculum but to look down the calendar for what will be needed by the students as the lessons build upon one another. In this way, the teacher can keep clearly delineated the lesson objectives that are important for that week's work from the lesson priorities that are crucial to understanding the more complex math concepts that are coming in the weeks ahead. At the same time the lesson plan must have built into it as much flexibility as possible for the instructor to adapt the plan and make changes on the fly as the class needs dictate. If the teacher perceives that the class is advanced and taking to the lessons extraordinarily well, he or she must be able to make adjustments to the lesson plans to take advantage of the aptitudes of the students.

www.coolmathgameskids.net

Similarly if there is remedial work that needs to be done, the lesson plans must allow for the teacher to slow down on certain key concepts and even allow more class sessions to those ideas so the material doesnt race ahead of the elementary schools student's ability to keep up. As the school year approaches, many elementary school teachers become concerned if their math curriculum lessons plans will fit both of those objectives. The preparation time is nothing short of crucial because to stand in front of a classroom of elementary school youth with no roadmap to follow will result in a catastrophe. That moment of truth when you look up from your carefully developed lesson plan at that sea of 20-30 young faces that you need to both teach as well as inspire and motivate tolerant math is a time when you really get a feel for whether that lesson plan is grounded in reality.

Probably the best way to fine tune your math lesson plan is to work with seasoned teachers or even take a year before you take on math as part of the curriculum you teach and work in a classroom with an experienced teacher to get a good feel for the relationship between that lesson plan and how the teacher conducts the class.
The lesson plan is a master strategy for teaching. But it is also a basic outline that you as teacher must be able to deviate from to meet the needs of the class to assure that the teaching objectives are met.

It will take time to develop lesson plans that are put together well enough to carry you for an entire semester of teaching math to elementary school students and achieve your learning objectives and still stay on track week to week. It will take time, wisdom and some thought to fine tune those lessons plans until they are guides that really will work. But once you have a set of working lesson plans for math and the other subjects you will teach at the elementary school level, they will be gold to you as you use them over and over each year.

www.coolmathgameskids.net

Homework Math
As parents it is hard to find ways to help your kids be successful in getting their homework done. Then problem is compounded when the subject is math because of all the subjects, math can be the most challenging and difficult to a young person. In many ways math is like a foreign language because the ideas are abstract and expressed in relationships between numbers and math concepts. So anything you can do to make it easy for your child to settle in and tackle challenging math homework will be a great help to him or her. One thing that helps a child or teenager get used to the idea of getting that homework done each night is a set schedule for when homework will be done. Young people thrive on routine and if they know what to expect each evening, the time to do homework will become a natural part of the evening. It is best to think through when the best time is for the homework. Right after the child gets home from school may not be perfect because it takes some time to settle in and be in a good mental state to take on homework. Often a time right after supper but before any recreation time is a good choice because the child is refreshed and the anticipation of fun helps them get through the tough work of doing their math assignments.

However it will pay to show some flexibility in this schedule. If the child has a social engagement on a particular evening that conflicts with the designated math homework, that is a good time to agree to allow the youngster to do their homework immediately after school to get it out of the way.
The student will be motivated to do well so they can have the fun of the outing that lies ahead. Also be careful not to forgive the Friday night homework time by suspending it until some "promised time" over the weekend. If that system is tried, the student must follow through on their promise or future negotiations cannot happen.

Along with a defined time when the homework will be done, parents should think through where in the home the homework will be done. The room should be a quiet place free of distractions. However, many young people do poorly if left alone to do their homework because they get lonely or distracted.

www.coolmathgameskids.net

It might be a good plan to have the youngster do their homework in the family office or at a table where mom or dad are also working on paperwork. That establishes a working environment but the youth has a parent there to help out if they get stuck. Parents have to walk a line between being partners and enforcers of the house rules particularly when it comes to helping the youngster get their math work done. But if the system is reliable and something the youth knows will be part of their evening, the sense of fulfillment of completing that homework and going to school prepared and informed for class the next day will become a feeling they look forward to having at the end of each successful math homework session.

Math Activities
Children and even teenagers often do not know how often math concepts occur in daily life. If they did have a greater appreciation of how practical math is on a daily basis, they would not complain so often how boring their math lessons are or how useless it is to learn some particularly abstract math idea. One way to help kids make that connection between real life and math ideas is to look for activities you can do with the kids that will put those math ideas to work in an active way. If you can pull off the activity and make it fun and fascinating, you will see the look of amazement when you reveal that they just learned or used an important math concept in a very real way. Many math concepts like set theory, volume, weight and relative sizes can be easily demonstrated with real life comparisons. Weight can be quickly understood by simply putting four or five items of similar size on the table and playing "guess the weight" for each one. After the kids try with varying digress of success to figure out the relative weights, a scale can reveal the actual weights. If you as the master of ceremonies of the game then demonstrate some math aptitude by discussing the weights in relative terms (percentage of weights, weight to size ratios, etc.), the kids will admire your ability to compute those values and a stimulating math discussion can occur because suddenly math became very real.

www.coolmathgameskids.net

Many games are also great math exercises. In fact, with a little internet research, you can find many games that you can introduce simply for the fun of it only to reveal much later that the game called for the kids to use applied mathematics to do well with that game. Other games where number relationships are important such as Sudoku and Yahtzee call up on the kids to learn to compute math answers in their heads and learn to appreciate math based relationships naturally and easily. The important thing is to point out how the family play time exercised math ideas and it was great fun. By being alert to learning circumstances in real life, you can ask your children to participate in impromptu math exercises based on something you encountered together. Many geometry ideas come about easily when you observe in nature triangles and other geometric shapes and how those shapes influence the usefulness of the item. Kids will even take notice when you compute the tip in a restaurant in your head because you know the formula for figuring out 10% or 15% (or whatever you tip) of the bill to compute the tip. They will want that skill themselves and that turns a dinner out into math homework time.

Math Assessment Test

Of the many areas of study a young person takes on in elementary and then secondary school, math is perhaps the one that is of greatest concern for parents and teachers alike in terms of assuring the students grasp the subject and move along with the material in step with the curriculum. Unlike history or many other topics, math is heavily structured so the students must understand each mathematical concept along the way because each lesson is a building block for the next one. So when you have a student at any level of the academic hierarchy that is approaching a new school year and with it a new level of complexity in their math skills, it is important to know that the young person is well grounded in the basics of their math knowledge so they do not start at a deficit of knowledge when the instructor gets the class moving on the new curriculum. A math assessment test is just the thing to make that determination and to discover early on if there is a need for any remedial training so the student doesnt walk into class already behind the other students in his or her math development.

www.coolmathgameskids.net

10

There is nothing more discouraging and frightening to a young student than to sit in a math class without the background education that he or she needs and to listen to a lesson that there is no possibility of understanding without those core mathematical principles well understood by the student. Many times students will hide their lack of knowledge from the teacher and their parents so week after week they fall further and further behind. It doesnt take long before the situation is a crisis which could have been avoided if the child's parents had simply utilized a good assessment process to make sure the young person was ready for the new academic year in mathematics. It isnt difficult to find grade appropriate assessment tests to measure where the student is in his or her knowledge of fundamental math concepts. Many are published by commercial book sellers so you can access them at a book store or on Amazon and get the assessment to your child quickly. There are also online assessment sites that can do the same job for a reasonable fee. Often these are preferable because the child enjoys working an internet testing software system more than working from a book. The academic counselor at your child's school can also provide assessment opportunities and follow up with tutoring or remedial math classes that can be taken to get the young student up to speed with their grade level before week one of class begins. This is an excellent step to take the summer before the next grade level to prepare for the next step in the child's academic life.

Math Elementary Worksheets

Any study in the best way to prepare children to be competitive academically and eventually in a competitive world comes to the same conclusion that math preparedness is central to achieving that goal. You only have to look at who is excelling in higher education to see that our educational system is not preparing students to be competitive in the advanced scientific and technical areas. Part of the reason for that is that children at an early age must develop a comfort level and even a love of math to go on to success in these technical areas of specialized study. Math is the cornerstone of that future success. As a parent, it falls to us to take it upon ourselves to help our children do better than they are expected to do by the academic system that is charged with their education. This is especially true if your children are in public school.

www.coolmathgameskids.net

11

Because public schools must accept and teach a huge diversity of children, the curriculums are designed to be understandable for children who are well prepared for harder material or for those that are not. The phrase "dumbed down" is one way of describing the math curriculums of most public schools. But rather than complain about it, as parents, there are ways you can step in and "smart up" that math curriculum in cooperation with your child's elementary school teacher. It takes a commitment at the parental level to help your child see the priority and the value of putting extra work into their math curriculum, especially if you set out to set a higher standard of achievement than the school has defined. It is not difficult to come up with the material. Most math lesson plans are purchased from educational publishing houses. If you look at your children's math books or talk to the teacher, very often those materials have supplemental worksheets that can be accessed through the internet. These additional materials are provided for teacher and parents alike to help out if a student needs remedial help. But additional math worksheets can be adapted into a program that you and the teacher can partner on to give your child that extra boost to lay a firm math groundwork that will benefit them throughout their academic careers.

That incentive plus the extra attention from parents each evening will let your kids know that success in math is a priority that will pay them handsomely both in the short term and over time.

One benefit of bringing your child's teacher in on the plan is that the children can be rewarded academically for the extra effort they put in at home completing the supplemental worksheets.

www.coolmathgameskids.net

12

Math Games
When you think about it, games are just a way to incorporate fun into any learning experience. And when it comes to a somewhat dry topic like math, games are a perfect way to make lesson time go by more quickly and to help each new math concept more understandable for the student in your home. Many times parents are as baffled and intimidated as the kids are when they come home with math homework0. So if your child's teacher sends along games that make each lesson more interesting and understandable, thats a huge leap forward. Games that make math enjoyable are not "dumbing down" the discipline of math. If anything, they are using math in the way that makes the most sense, in an applied situation. Games take an abstract math idea and make it usable and concrete by putting it into a challenge that tickles the mind with a scenario or a puzzle while making the math principle spring to life. That is one reason games are by far one of the best teaching techniques that any math teacher can use. And they are great ways for you as parents to help your kids "sink their teeth" into math. If the teacher of your son or daughters math class does not send home at least one or two games to match up with each new math concept, it may not be the teacher's fault. Math textbooks are notoriously dry and often the homework that is sent home is nothing more than various abstract formulas using the new math idea with nothing concrete for the student to use as a point of contact to the idea. So if the math teaching aids did not come with games, the teacher may not have had the time to look for good games to add to the homework or he or she may be constrained to only use the homework that was provided. But that doesnt mean you as a parent are so constrained. The internet is bursting with homework help web sites that you can often access for free or for a reasonable fee. By tapping into a section of a math tutorial web site that fits your child's curriculum, you can find activities to fit each and every lesson or math idea. Using these supplemental materials, you can design a system fro you to use at home to get the kids over their math phobia and help you past those fears as well.

www.coolmathgameskids.net

13

You can use the games you find as a reward for doing the preliminary work of reading the material, discussing it with the parent who is becoming the child's math tutor and trying a few homework problems. Then when a serious effort has been made, the games can begin. The enjoyable part of the game will be made better because the student took on the problems beforehand. As an understanding of the math principle comes upon your child, that "ah ha" moment will be precious. Then the student can finish their math homework with ease. The math concept is well entrenched in his or her brain and the student goes to school prepared and confident each day. That is the kind of program that make math a favorite subject rather than the one your child and you dread each year.

Math Homework Help

There may not be a formal "phobia" for the fear you may feel set in when you get a big math homework assignment to take home but there should be. Of all of the subject areas students face in school, often it is math that strikes the most fear for lots of reasons. The new math concepts come fast and furious during a semester of math instruction. You can be on top of the world one week and following the progression of ideas quite well only to find yourself hopelessly lost the next week. When you fall into the "hopelessly lost" category, coming home with a long math homework assignment to face down alone can be a terrifying idea. You know you have to try to tackle that homework. But you feel intimidated, lost and frightened which leads to procrastination. This is a cycle that will not end well. One solution may be to open the book and read the chapter over and over in hopes you get a breakthrough. If that works, you are one of the lucky ones. But if you were lost in class, the problem is probably much worse when you are alone with your homework assignment and that textbook that might as well be written in ancient Sanskrit for all the good it is to you. Instead of beating yourself up about the math issues you have, there has to be a better way. The better way is to find someone to give you some help and get you back "in the groove" as to where you are in your math assignments.

www.coolmathgameskids.net

14

Obviously you want to find the path of least resistance in getting some help. Your network of immediate friends is a good resource. Someone you know well may understand this particular assignment. Dont be afraid to approach that friend for study date to pick his or her brain. In addition to the help you get, its much easier to do tough homework with a friend than to face it alone. But if you can't find the help in your inner circle of trusted friends, think about the other kids in the class and which ones always seem to know what the heck is going on. One of them may be willing to tutor you. It might seem like a your least favorite place to go for help but there are two places you can go that are easy to get to, free and who want you to be a success. That is your parents or your teachers. Too many students are afraid to go to the teacher after class to admit that you just dont understand the assignment. But the teacher will be thrilled you were willing to seek help and if anything, reaching out for help can only help your final grade. Similarly, you may fear getting yelled at if you go to your parents for help. But they would far rather help you than see you fail. Your parents may be closet math whizzes and you just didnt know. But even if they aren't, they will be willing to get you the help you need. Better to swallow your pride and go to one of these sources than to sit and suffer with "math phobia" which only leads to frustration and potential failure.

Math Lessons
When it comes to the academic study of math that all students working their way through their elementary or secondary education must have, it is easy to start to wonder if there is a law somewhere that math lessons have to be boring and dry. While there really is no academic requirement for math to be a subject that kills the soul while educating the mind, in many public and even private school situations, math is one of the topics that becomes an ordeal for students to get through. It doesnt have to be this way. Much of how the students feel about math comes from the instructor. Any real math enthusiast would take extreme offense at the very idea that math is boring.

www.coolmathgameskids.net

15

If the teacher of the math class is not someone who is passionate about the subject, the teacher is going to be disinterested in the teaching of math and will treat it as though he or she was teaching on variations of the color grey. The instructors lack of interest will be passed to the student which could kill many young peoples love of math entirely. It is important at the administration of the school to see math as a topic that needs to be taught as a fundamental life skill by an instructor who lives and breathes math ideas. If the instructor is passionate about the topic and considers math to be the most exciting area of study in the world, that passion will be passed to the students. While it may not convert every student into a math fanatic, it will make the kids enjoy their time in math class and the job of learning important math skills will be much easier than if math is tedious and painful to get through.

Parents and educators can work together to make sure math does not become something students come to dread. As parents, its good to look inward to find out if you have "math phobia" because your attitude toward the subject could be passed to your child.

If you have a negative attitude about math that you may have picked up on when you were young, its a good idea to address that as an adult so your enthusiasm for math is not phony when you are trying to inspire your children on to better performance in this important area of their studies. Along with giving the math students in your life plenty of encouragement and support, there are lots of ways to make math fun. Math games and puzzles and math based online adventures can take each math idea and turn it into an exciting exploration for each child. Parents can also work with the school administration to hold math fairs where many math based games and social events can change the perception of math and make it one of the "cool things" to do. That effort to make math interesting and valued to your kids will pay off in a big way throughout their academic career and on into their adult lives as well.

www.coolmathgameskids.net

16

Fun math games 4 kids

Most kids like playing video games because they are fun and gives them a great adrenalin rush. If we can make this practice of them advantages, whereas they would learn while they play, you will find great ways to make their play time productive. That is the main motto of fun math games 4 kids

Why are math games effective?

As a child approaches level after level in a gaming platform, they feel themselves to be improving on the subject which is a very difficult feeling to be induced by plain teaching methods. When a kid feels the improvement from within, they then to keep going at it for a much longer time, hence, they get to spend more time learning, which isn't the case, otherwise. The other reason is that fun math games provide instant results which can be very advantageous. Most of the time, when a child scored an A in his/her class, the adrenalin rush that he/she has at that moment to outdo others in the class is high but wears down in time. In games, they get an instant result which gives them a feel of achieving A in their scorecard and gives them an enthusiasm to keep going.

What research says?

Math games have positive impact on how students look at the subject. All the reports show either an improvement in their score or maintenance of the same grade but none shows a decrease in scores. A research conducted by Seigler and Ramani indicates that playing number line games helps students improve in:

www.coolmathgameskids.net

17

Identifying numerals Counting Comparing number magnitudes Understanding a number

All in all, playing math games has many positive aspects and proven results to be taken out of contest.

Selecting the right games for your kids:

This is the most important aspect for you to consider as a parent/guardian. Choosing the right games for your kids depending on their attributes and grade level will provide better results than just playing a random game. Here on our website, we help you make this decision simpler. All the math games are categorized according to the grade level and you can also see a detailed description on the topics the game covers. So, you can choose a game depending on the topics or the grade level your child is in. For example, for a 4th grader, playing Multiplication Baseball would be the right option as that is one of the topics that he has to prepare for as per his curriculum. Every game has been tested throughout to have a positive learning curve of the topic and contain enough level to take the learning at a slow but effective pace. By the end of every game, you can be sure that your child has a good grasp on the topic the game was on. We have a huge collection of games based on all the topics starting from Number sense, Multiplication, word games, geometry etc. You can be sure that you can find games on any topic here. So, anytime your child is having problem with a specific topic, all you have to do is, find a game specific to that topic and have your child play it. At the end of the game, you can be sure that your child will have a better grasp of the topic. This is an advantage that you can get from fun math games 4 kids.

www.coolmathgameskids.net

18

Recommended Product!
Be sure to check out Teresa Evans' Making Math More Fun Secrets and GET YOUR FREE MATH GAMES COLLECTION TODAY!

http://makingmathmorefun4kids.info/ http://coolmathgameskids.net/ https://www.facebook.com/CoolMathGames4Kids?ref=hl https://twitter.com/Coolfunmathgame

www.coolmathgameskids.net

19