If you’re looking for a way to spice up your students’ math review, you’ll love these five low-prep review games for math! They’re perfect for upper-grade students, and they require minimal prep time on your part. So get ready to have some fun while reviewing math skills!
Review Games for Math: Jeopardy
This classic game show can be easily adapted to any subject, including math. You can create your own categories and questions, or find a game that has already been created. There are a lot of great websites (like this one) that include both premade games and templates that allow you to build your own. This is a great review game for math to use with the entire class because it’s interactive and everyone can get involved. Plus, playing games with a bit of friendly competition is always fun.
Review Games for Math: 4 in a Row
This is a great game for reviewing any math topic you’ve taught this year. You can make your own gameboard with a piece of paper (or whiteboard) and some markers. I recommend making a grid that is at least 6 squares by 6 squares, but you can go bigger if you prefer. You can play this game with the whole class and have students in teams or with partners. I love to play it with partners and select the partners myself so that I can be intentional with the partner pairings.
Once you’ve created the teams or partners, students decide who will go first. You provide a math problem and both students work individually to solve the problem. If the first person answers correctly they can draw their red mark in a square. If they missed it and the second person answered the problem correctly, they can make their black mark in a square. If neither answer the problem correctly, no one gets a mark. Then the play continues onto the next math problem and the second person answers the problem first. The game continues until the first person to get four in a row wins! Of course, you can always play this review game for math with an actual 4 in a-row gameboard.
Review Games for Math: Math Madness
Are you looking for a paper and pencil comprehensive review game for math? Math Madness is just what you need! This engaging standards-based math review is set up in a tournament style and will engage your students while reviewing many of the math concepts you’ve taught this year. This project is available in 5th, 4th, and 3rd grade math standards.
In this game, students create a basketball team (either individually, with partners, or with teams) and enter the tournament. Each game they play covers a grade-level standard domain (i.e. fractions, place value). In order to move on to the next round of the tournament they need to correctly complete each page. This project includes overtime games, color-by-number championship game, and a variety of options on how to implement it in your classroom. This is a review game for math that your students will love and is low-prep for you!
Review Games for Math: Buzz Off!
This one is perfect for practicing a variety of math skills. First, you write (or print) a math problem on one side of an index card and the answer on the other side. Player 1 starts by drawing any card and solving the problem. If they get it right, they keep the card and take another turn. If they get it wrong, play passes to Player 2. The first player to collect 10 cards wins! This is a great game to add to your math centers or leave out for early finishers.
Review Games for Math: Concentration
You’ll need a deck of cards with math problems and corresponding answer cards. Set all the cards face down in rows on a table or the floor. Players take turns flipping over two cards at a time, looking for a match. They will have to solve the math problem on the card when they flip it over in order to find the matching answer card. When they find a match, they remove the two cards and set them aside. If there is no match, they flip the cards back over and it’s the next player’s turn. The game is over when all the pairs have been found. Whoever has the most pairs at the end is the winner!
Now you may be saying where do I get these cards with math problems? You can always use math problems from different texts or worksheets you have or create your own. But my favorite trick is to use task cards! Do you know all those task cards you have that review various math skills? Use them for the review games. It’s okay if you’ve already used the task cards. Most of the time students won’t remember specific problems. It doesn’t get any more low-prep than that!
Now that you’re armed with a few upper-grade math review games that are low-prep, it’s time to get playing. Pick a game from the list and try it out with your students today. With minimal prep on your part and lots of fun and engagement for your students, you can’t go wrong with any of these options. Which low-prep upper-grade review games for math will you try first?
No Comments