Multiplication Games

This week’s game post is inspired by my son. Using Math-U-See, he’s come to have a great understanding of what multiplication means and how to figure it out using manipulatives. What he needs now is lots and lots of practice, to get those facts down pat. He hates flashcards and worksheets, so we use games!

His absolute favorite multiplication game is a card game called Mythmatical Battles by 4R Inc. This game pits different mythological figures against each other in a battling game similar to Magic: The Gathering or the Pokemon card game. Each box comes with two decks of cards featuring mythological figures: Norse vs. Egyptians or Celtic vs. Greek.

If you get both boxes, of course, you can mix things up and play Norse vs. Celtic or Greek as well. In the game, players get a hand of cards to play to the “field” and use their characters (gods, heroes, minions and monsters) to attack the other player’s characters. So far, it’s very much like many other battling card games out there. The trick is that in this game, each card’s attack and defense values are written as multiplication facts. A god might have an attack of 7x8 and a defense of 9x9; a minion might only get a 3x2 attack and a 4x1 defense. If you calculate incorrectly, you can lose the battle, so it’s important to concentrate and get the facts right.

My son absolutely loves mythology - he begged to be Thoth (Egyptian god of writing) one year for Halloween and is already planning to be Thor (Norse god of thunder) this year. So this game fits him absolutely perfectly! He loves reading the blurbs on each card that give information about the characters, he enjoys the competition of having battling gods, and he’s getting great practice on his math facts!

There are also a few different multiplication games that have a board with a number chart. One of these is The Iguana Factor, published by Learning Resources. In this game, players use a spinner to see which number they can cover with colored discs, trying to create a line from one side of the board to the other. The spinner introduces bumping and capturing moves to add a little extra fun and action to the game.

A similar game called The Winning Touch! is published by Educational Learning Games. In The Winning Touch!, players each have a rack of numbers to fit into a blank multiplication table, but can only lay down a tile if it touches another tile on the board. This game has been out of stock for a while, and so my son and I made our own copy at home using cardstock and the rules from the website. In fact, after playing it a few times, we tweaked it so works better for us. That’s one of the great parts about using games in homeschooling: you can always change the rules or the materials to make the game a more effective learning tool for the student who is playing it!

There are also lots of easy ways to practice multiplication using dice or playing cards. We play the Reach 123 game using two ten-sided dice. Each player takes a piece of paper and rolls two ten-sided dice (you can use six-sided dice to make the game easier or twelve-sided dice to make it harder, or two playing cards if that’s what you have on hand). Write down the product of your two numbers, and each turn add your new product to the running total. In our house, we play to be the first to reach 123, but you can set any goal you’d like, or agree to play for a certain amount of time or for 10 rolls of the dice, and see who has the higher total. This is a great on-the-go game to play in waiting rooms or between activities.

I hope these multiplication games come in handy for some of your kids! If you know or play any other games to help your kids remember their multiplication facts, please share them with us in the comments.

In between board games, PisecoMom squeezes in a little homeschooling for her two adorable children at Mind Games.

All photos from Board Game Geek (pictures are linked)