Finding 1st grade math games that make math fun is a great way to encourage your students to get excited about math! First grade students love to be engaged and have fun while learning. Teachers love giving students math games so they can increase their math skills while having fun too! Today, I’m going to share a few different first grade math games for different math skills that you can add to your math curriculum. Second grade students would enjoy some of these math games as well! There are some free math games included in this blog post so make sure you read each game!
1st Grade Math Games for Teaching Number Sense
- Number Sense Independent Math Games: I love using these fun math games for independent quiet time. They are perfect for early finishers because students do not have to wait for another student to be done with their work to play. Some different skills these games focus on are: identifying and recognizing numbers with ten frames, dice, fingers, and tally marks. They also work on finding the missing number. These no prep games are a fun way to build number sense. They are preloaded into Google Slides and Seesaw. Click here for these math games.
- Number Sense Bingo: These free number sense bingo cards are a great educational tool for whole group or small groups. This free download includes 10 different Bingo cards (so if you play with your whole class, you will need to print more than one set of Bingo cards). Your 1st graders need a Bingo board and counters. The teacher pulls a number card, reads it aloud, and students find the number on their Bingo card. The numbers are represented with ten frames, fingers, dice, place value blocks, and dots. This is a free download! Get it below.
- Number Sense Jacks: Remember the game, Jacks? You bounce a ball and have to scoop up as many Jacks as you can before the ball lands again. In this version, you can use any small items (think: counters, dice, mini erasers, etc.). Students bounce the ball and scoop up the items. Then, they place the number of items on a ten frame and have to identify what the number is on the ten frame.
1st Grade Math Games For Teaching Addition Problems
- Addition Independent Math Games: These printable math games are the perfect way to work on addition facts. These games use dice or spinners. Students play alone so they never have to wait for another student to play. Being independent math games rather than partner games makes them fun review games as well because students are focused on figuring out the answer, rather than beating a partner. These games also include number bonds, ten frames, doubles, missing addends, fact families, adding three numbers, and adding two numbers. These interactive math games are preloaded into Google Slides and Seesaw. Click here for the addition math games.
- Addition Battle With Uno Cards: Students are with partners. They divide their stack of Uno Cards (only use cards with numbers). The cards should be face down. At the same time they flip their card over. The first person to add the two numbers together and say the sum correctly wins that round.
- Addition Bingo: These free addition bingo cards are a fun game to play with small groups or your whole class! There are 10 addition bingo cards included, so if you play with more than 10 students you will need to print additional cards. The teacher reads the addition equation and students find the sum on their addition bingo card. This is another great way to practice math facts! These free printables can be sent to you when you sign up below.
- Domino Game: For this game, two students play against one another. You will need dominoes and 2 whiteboards and 2 dry erase markers. Each student has a whiteboard and marker. At the same time, students grab a domino. They write the equation on the board from the numbers on the domino. For example, if their domino has 5 dots on one side and 4 dots on the other, then the equation is 5+4=9. After solving the equation, their partner double-checks their work for the correct answer.
- Roll A Hundred: With this game, your students will need a die (or two dice depending on your class) and a hundred chart. They roll the die and count that many spaces and cross out the number. Then, they roll again, count that many spaces and cross out the number. Go until they get to 100! To increase the level of difficulty, have your students write the equation every time. For example, if they are on the number 39 and roll a 6, they would write the equation 39+6-=45.
1st Grade Math Games For Teaching Subtraction Problems
- Subtraction Independent Math Games: These printable math games are a perfect way to work on subtraction facts. These games also use dice or spinners, like the other independent games mentioned above. Students work on subtracting two numbers, subtracting with ten frames and twenty frames, true/false equations, and number bonds. These interactive math games are preloaded into Google Slides and Seesaw. Click here for the subtraction math games.
- Line Them Up!: For Line Them Up!, you’ll need a number line (I use these number lines, but you can find printable ones online) and counting bears. Line counting bears on each number on the number line (starting at 1). You can do this with small groups or your whole class. Tell your students to put a certain number of bears on their number line. For this example, tell them to put 6 bears on the number line. Then, tell them to remove a number. For this example, have them remove 2. Then, they will need to count how many bears are left and say the difference. If your students are ready for the higher difficulty level beyond saying the difference, have them write down the subtraction equation. Don’t have counting bears? No problem, just use a different manipulative. I use these counting bears here.
- Domino Game: This is the same as the addition domino game above, but reversed for subtraction. Again, your students are in pairs and each student needs a small whiteboard and dry erase marker. At the same time, students grab a domino. They write the equation on the board from the numbers on the domino. For example, if their domino has five dots on one side and four dots on the other, then the equation is 5-4=1. After solving the equation, their partner will double-check their work for the correct answer.
1st Grade Math Games For Teaching Time To The Hour And Half Hour
- Telling Time Independent Math Games: These printable math games focus on telling time to the hour and half hour with an analog clock and digital clock. 1st grade students need to master these new skills before the end of the school year, so these interactive math games are the perfect addition to your math lessons or early finishers. Students identify the time and draw time on the analog clock. For first graders ready for a challenge (or second graders), there are math games that include time to the five minutes. These games use dice and spinners. They are preloaded into Google Slides and Seesaw. Click here for the games.
- Telling Time To The Hour Bingo: These free Time To The Hour Bingo cards are a great educational tool for whole group or small groups. There are 10 different Bingo cards, so if you are using for more than 10 students at a time, you will need to print multiple. The teachers pulls a card and reads the time. Students find the analog clock with the correct time. This is a free download! Sign up below.
- Telling Time Scavenger Hunt: Place different Judy clocks (or printables of analog clocks) around the room with different times on them. When students find them, they have to take the clock and go back to their desk and write the time. Students need to show the teacher before taking the clock back and repeating.
1st Grade Math Games For Place Value
- Place Value Independent Math Games: These interactive math games focus on first grade math skills such as: counting hundreds, tens, and ones, building the number with place value blocks, determining multiples of tens less than and more than (example: 30 less than 44), and greater than and less than and equal to. These are a great addition to your math lessons or early finishers. They are preloaded into Google Slides and Seesaw. Click here for the place value games.
- Place Value Scavenger Hunt: For this game, you will need post-its and place value blocks for each student. How many place value blocks depends on how big of numbers you plan on working with. On your post-its, write two-digit numbers. Then, hide them around the room. Make sure there is a post-it for each student. When you say “go”, your students will search around the room for a post-it. Once they find one, they hurry back to their desk and build the number with their place value blocks. Once they show you (or take a photo with their iPad if you are submitting digitally), they go hide the post-it somewhere in the classroom (make sure to tell students to not hide them so hard they can’t be found!). Then, they find a different post-it and repeat!
- Place Value Shake ‘Em Up: For this hands-on activity, you will need to put your students in pairs. Each pair of students needs a cup and place value blocks. Again, the number of place value blocks depends on how high of numbers you are using! Your students will turn around so they are not facing one another. One student has the cup and blocks. They will place some of the tens and ones in the cup. Then, they turn around and face one another. The other student shakes the cup and dumps the blocks out. They then have to count the number of blocks and say what the number is. To increase the difficulty, have the student guess the number before the dump the blocks out. Then, they have to determine if the actual block number is greater than or less than the number they predicted.
- Greater Number Wins!: For this math game, your students will need to be in pairs. Each pair needs a deck of cards. Your students will each draw two cards. Then, they need to make the greatest number with their two cards. For example, one student draws a 4 and a 7. They can either make 47 or 74. They would make 74 because it’s the greater number. To determine who wins, they have to make the greater number between the two numbers.
1st Grade Math Games For 2-D Shapes and 3-D Shapes
- 2-D Shapes and 3-D Shapes Independent Math Games: These interactive math games include first grade math skills such as: identifying the shapes, identifying the shape by number of sides, determining which shapes match the face of a 3-D shape, identifying real-life objects that match the 3-D shape, identifying open and closed shapes, and creating shapes with multiple 3-D shapes. These math games are preloaded into Google Slides and Seesaw. Click here.
- Shapes Scavenger Hunt: On your white board, draw different shapes. In partners, students need to go find a real object in the classroom for each shape. Once all partners have found an object for each shape, turn it into a sorting game! Put the set of partners with another groups shapes. The students then have to sort those objects into the correct shape.
- I Spy Shapes: This is a great game to play with the whole group! It’s the same as I Spy, but with shapes! When spying a shape, tell students the say the number of sides, what kind of shape it is, and the color. These are all attributes of shapes and it’s great practice for determining those attributes. They can say the number of vertices and edges too, if you want! The first player to guess the shape then gets to be the spyer.
I hope you enjoy these fun classroom math games! You can add these different math games to your math centers, use for independent work, or add to your math lesson plans. These are all also great ideas to leave for a sub!
To check out our entire bundle of independent math games, click this link.
They include games for addition, subtraction, number sense, place value, telling time, and 2-D and 3-D shapes.
Click here to purchase on TPT.
Click here to purchase on the Missing Tooth Grins website store.
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