Math Games for Kids : Pot o’ Gold math game

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Making math and science interesting and engaging through fun math games and hands on science experiments has been my goal for a long time. With 2 girls and a world that tries hard to tell young women that they are not that good at STEM compared to their male peers, I find it very important to cultivate their confidence and interest. It is great that every kid starts off their childhood with oodles of curiosity in all subject matters including math and science. But somewhere along the way, they lose steam, lose confidence and often times develop hatred towards the subjects. Well, we are not going to let that happen right?

{ More hands on math activities for kids}

Follow Kids Play Box’s board Math Activities on Pinterest.

Here is a super fun math game for kids with a free printable included

St. Patrick’s Day Math Game

Materials {The bold and underlined green words are working links}

Pot O Gold Math Printable
Jumbo Craft Sticks
Tape
Treasure Coins
Index Cards {optional}
Swingline Laminator

This math activity is s versatile and you can modify it depending on the age of the child

After printing our pot of gold and our 2 leprechauns, I laminated the sheets for future use. I realize that we have done so many learning activities and math games with my now 6 year old but never really saved the games. I find myself redoing the same cards for my 4 year old. I could have easily laminated the cards and saved myself more repetitive work. Learn from my mistake and laminate the games you make so you can reuse the same game cards.

{I love the efficient, inexpensive Swingline Laminator I have.}

I cut out the pots and the leprechauns along their outlines to make the game more catchy. I taped both he leprechauns to jumbo craft stixks to make puppets out of them.

I also set out gold coins. This will be your invitation to play and learn with this super fun math game.

Your pot o’ gold cards {1-10} , 2 leprechaun puppets and a cup of gold coins.

Preschool Math

Younger kids can start off with counting the coins. Then use the pot cards for introducing one-one correspondence. Kids count the coins and match them with the corresponding pot cards

These pot of gold cards and the coins may lead to a long pretend play as well. { Yeah with good and naughty leprechauns!} Well that what makes this a fun math game.

Kindergarten Math Game

Once the child gets the grasp of counting and one -to-one correspondence, you can move on addition games and subtraction games. This is where the leprechaun puppets come in. Use the happy leprechaun to reinforce addition. Happy leprechauns “gives you gold”. He loves to share. So add the money with the “addition leprechaun”.

On the contrary the naughty leprechaun steals gold from you. So he takes away the gold from the subtraction sequence { subtraction leprechaun} Use the naughty one to reinforce subtraction. Just holding the addition or subtraction puppet next to them reinforces the concept. I would start off with counting first, then one-to-one correspondence, then addition and finally subtraction. I would also phase out every concept to give enough time for the information to sink in.

Once you place the addition equation card, the child would start by placing the corresponding pot of card and then decide if the happy leprechaun is going to give her gold or the naughty one is going to steal the gold.