Beyond Flying Flashcards – Types of Math Games Online

When you hear ‘online math games’, what comes to mind? An arcade-style game where players rapidly reproduce math facts in order to win the level? While this is certainly one example of an online math game, it isn’t representative of the variety and range of online math games available for your child. In reality, math involves a lot more than memorizing the multiplication tables. In fact, being skilled with numbers alone does not guarantee a good understanding of geometry or even statistics. Kids must have a variety of math skills in order to excel in the subject, and fortunately there are online math games that help students improve in all of these skills.

Types of Math Games Online

Number Games

Number games are the most commonly recognized math games online. The connection to math is usually obvious, as with addition games, subtraction games and counting games. However, these are not the only type of number games that kids can play. Games that involve buying and selling or the use of numbers in other situations like statistics are also fantastic. Kids can spend hours on these math games, picking up important math skills like dealing with money or working with percentages without even realizing it!
Math skill involved: These online math games help kids practice a wide variety of math skills, including factual memory and memory for rules. Factual memory is the memory used to remember math facts, while memory for rules is what your child requires in order to remember how to solve a specific type of math problem.

Strategy Games

Strategy games are games that require the player to make decisions and respond intelligently to changing circumstances in order to win the game. This category includes games like Tetris.
Math skill involved: While Tetris may not seem at first to be an online math game, it in fact helps kids develop their attention spans and encourages them to be acutely aware of changing situations. This skill is very important in mathematics, as kids must be able to pay due attention to the various components of a math problem in order to solve it correctly. Also, kids must decide on the best approach to solving a problem based on the information revealed as they work out the answers.

Skill Games

In order to play a skill game, kids must learn special rules and gameplay that is unique to the game. This type of online math game requires regular practice for mastery.
Math skill involved: So where is the math in these games? Again, the connection is not immediately obvious. Procedural memory plays a key role in the mastery of skill games. Kids can only improve at these games when they remember the appropriate response to various types of situations in the game. Solving math problems also relies heavily on procedural memory – kids must remember the steps to solving various types of math problems in order to get better at solving them. Depending on the gameplay involved, skill games may also exercise critical thinking and problem solving skills – both important for improving at math.

Shape/Color Games and Picture Games

Shape/color games are those that involve classifying objects based on color or shape in order to eliminate them. Players try to manage space and the organization of the objects as newer ones are randomly added to the set. While the underlying principle of these games is similar, the variations on this game have different gameplay elements that make them uniquely challenging. Picture games include all types of jigsaw puzzles, including ‘slider puzzles’ and those based on memory.
Math skill involved: Picture games and shape/ color games are fun online math games that build the player’s spatial ordering skills. Spatial ordering skills help children with the understanding of geometric concepts as well as the ability to visualize mathematical concepts like proportion and multiplication.