Inside: A master list of simple, inexpensive, and fun ways to teach all the basic math principles your kids need to thrive. PLUS- Free Math Roadmap
Most homeschoolers overcomplicate math with fancy curriculum, worksheets, quizzes, stop-watches
Before you scroll, get your free gift
Stripping math back to its basic foundational core, we can set our kids up for success in life by giving them a solid foundation with allows them to add, subtract, multiply, divide, count, measure, weigh, and estimate.
Most kids are not mathematicians hiding inside little bodies. They are dancers, chefs, architects, designers, farmers, mechanics, bankers, writers or yet-to-be-decideds.
Let’s give our kids a solid foundation in the area of math so they can balance their checkbook, decide which deal is the best bargain, measure that granite with accuracy, give an estimate for that remodel, or plan out their crops. If they decide that math is their universe, then we can strap on a deep sea diving suit and bring them face to face the parabolas, quadratic formulas, and matrixes in the last years of high school or pass them off to a college professor.
Pro Tips for Making Math Fun
- Balance using math manipulatives, patterning activities, measuring, and art with pencil and paper activities.
- Play math games related to the concepts being learned and practiced.
- Weave stories about math into the day.
- Find ways to eat math!
- Sing it! Songs stick and stay in our kid’s memory.
Make Math Fun with these AMAZING Math Supplies from Moms and Teachers like you!
Don’t feel pressure to get everything.
A good set of math manipulatives, books, and games will help you and your kids have fun with math for years! I collected math manipulates for the first few years of homeschooling and teaching, even adding a kit or two during gift giving!
- Linking cubes for adding and subtracting, patterning and more
- Base Ten Blocks, for understanding place value, addition and subtraction
- Counting Bears for adding, subtracting, grouping, patterning, and more
- Number Line Activities
- Pattern Blocks
- Fishing Math Game
- Geometric Solids
- Pizza Fractions
- AMAZING flashcards
- Roman Numerals, time, money, decimals, and MORE Learning Kit
For now, we serve our kids and their future best by giving them a solid foundation in math.
Table of Contents of 16 Math Concepts Covered in the different activities here:
- Fine motor skills
- Colors
- Shapes
- Patterning
- Sorting
- Math art
- Addition/subtraction
- Tally marks
- Number lines
- Multiplication/Division
- Estimating
- Fractions
- Decimals
- Money
- Time
- Percentages
4 Ways to Make Math Fun While Building and Strengthening Fine Motor Skills
According to studies, “fine motor skills were a better predictor of early maths ability than they were of early reading ability,” (source)
Safety Tip: Kids like to put things in their mouths so you’re going to want to closely supervise your kids when they are working with things they might choose to taste. Like Legos, marbles, pom poms, and play dough.
If it fits through a toilet paper roll, consider it a choking hazard and watch them closely.
- Pom-Pom Sorting by Busy Toddler
- Texture Balloons for Kids by Little Bins for Little Hands
- Pasta Threading Activity by Laughing Kids Learn
- Play dough Fun Trays by Pocket of Preschool
- Fine Motor Skills Printable Bundle by A Better Way to Homeschool
8 Fun Ways to Teach Kids Colors and Shapes
One of the first math skills kids learn is to identify colors and shapes. This is a fun time in their math career, when all learning is disguised as playtime.
Lean into it and help them have fun!
- Songsaboutcolors collected by Prekinders
- Goldfish sorting by Live Like You Are Rich
- Hungry Monster Sorters by Like Like You Are Rich
- Easy Color Wheel Sorting by Craftionary
- FREE All About Colors Learning Pack by This Reading Mama
- How to teach a toddler their colors by Live like you are rich
- My First Colors
Learning shapes unit by Planning Playtime
FREE Dab a Dot Shapes by 123 Homeschool 4 me
36+ Fun Patterning and Sorting Activities
From the very beginning, kids need to sort all kinds of items and create or repeat patterns. It’s a foundational math skill that will set them up for success in the future.
Yes, they can sort laundry and the sippy cup drawer, but there are some fun manipulatives that can be purchased once and then used over and over again.
FREE Bear Counter Strip Patterns by The Measured Mom
Bear counter fun
Introducing Patterns to Toddlers by Busy Toddler
Shape Sorting for Toddlers by Mess for Less
My Favorite Shape Sorter by Melissa and Doug
Graph that Pattern by A Better Way to Homeschool
How to Introduce patterns to preschoolers
25+ Fun with Math-ArtIdeas
Most kids need to explore concepts in multiple ways in order to get a firm understanding. You might think about art projects when you dream about math at night, but the right math art project may be just the ticket to capture your child’s imagination!
21 Math Art Ideas by What Do We Do All Day
Print and Color Tessellations by Frugal Fun for Boys
Print and Color Tessellation Puzzles
The Art of Circles by Nurture Store
Radial Symmetry by Art with Mrs. Nguyen
Compass Painting by Housing a Forest
7+ FUN Addition and Subtraction Activities and Ideas
Whack a Ball Subtraction Game by Planning Playtime
Fun Addition puzzles to 100 by Teaching Products
Simple to use Addition and Subtraction Fun Sheets by A Better Way to Homeschool
Addition and subtraction BUNDLE by Rebekah Sayler
Fun with Uni fix Cubes by Homegrown Learners
Good old fashioned flash cards
Counting with centimeter cubes
4 TallyMark andNumberLineActivities
Tally Marks: Right Start Math Activity by Two Happy Homeschoolers
Tally Marks Activity by Kindergarten Smorgasboard
Walk the Number Line by PBS
LEGO Number Line by Royalbaloo
7 Fun Multiplication and Division Activities and Ideas
Star Wars Multiplication Practice by A Better Way to Homeschool
Multiplication Bundle by A Better Way to Homeschool
How to teach multiplication and Division with LEGO by Math Geek Mama
Hands-On Division Activity by Rainy Day Mum
2 Fun Estimating Activities for Kids
Estimation Jars for Preschool by Mama Papa Bubba
Estimating Task Cards FREE by You’ve Got this Math
Related: Why Teaching BOTH estimation and accuracy is important.
7 Fun Ways to Teach KidsFractions
Cooking Camp for Kids by A Better Way to Homeschool
Pizza Fraction Project by 4th Grade Frolics
Fraction Mats by ABCs with Mrs B
5 FUN Decimal Activities and Ideas
Rules of Decimals by Moore Resources
How to introduce decimals by Classroom Caboodle
FREE Multiplying and Dividing Decimals Game By Math Geek Mama
4 FUN Money Activities and Ideas
As our kids grow, we want them to develop real world math skills. What could be more “real world” than learning to understand money?
Budgeting for Kids by A Better Way to Homeschool
FREE Counting Money Flip Cards by Life Over CS
Coin Caterpillar by Miss Kindergarten
Money Sorting Mat by Mrs. Hodge and Her Kindergarten Kids
4 Fun Activities and Ideas for Teaching Time
“Mom! What time is it?”
This may not be asked as often these days, since everyone seems to have a device in their reach that can tell time, but none the less, learning to tell time will save kids from embarrassment at some point in their lives.
Making Clocks to Practice Telling Time by A Better Way to Homeschool
Hula Hoop Clock by Creekside Learning
It’s Always Time to Pray by A Better Way to Homeschool
After School Routine Clock by Heathered Nest
The Easy Way to Solve Percentages
Lastly, we don’t want to neglect those older students! Even though they’ve moved on to more exciting math, we can still add some fun into their practice!
You’ll be surprised how much time kids spend working with percentages as they get older. Solving percents is a skill most people will use throughout their lives.
Additional Math FUN
If you can find a math picture book that discusses, explains, or introduces math concepts then you will want to throw them into the reading basket!
Here is a collection of some excellent Math Books for Kids!
