Math Twister! {A Fun Indoor Math Game!}

I don’t know about you, but we have seen an inordinate amount of rain around here! And while it has been great for the trees and the flowers, it has not been quite as great for these stir crazy kids! Not to worry, though, because I came up with a math game that kept them busy AND wore them out, all while practicing important math facts!

Use the classic game Twister to practice all sorts of math facts! A great way to get kids moving and learning at the same time!

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I simply turned the classic game of Twister into a get-up-and-move math game to help my little ones (who are starting Kindergarten and First grade this year) practice basic addition facts and work on their mental math skills! It took no time at all to set up, and they seriously had SO.MUCH.FUN!

Set up:

First, I used post it notes to write an answer value on each of the colors. I wanted to start with some easier addition facts since my son is just starting, so I used the numbers 4, 5, 6 and 7 to represent addition answers.

Use the classic game Twister to practice all sorts of math facts! A great way to get kids moving and learning at the same time!

Each color was the same number, so for example, since red represented the answer 4, I stuck a #4 post it on each red circle. (Side note: they had a ton of fun just sticking all the post its on the mat! Ha! It’s the little things, right?)

Then, just to help me remember which color stood for each answer, I stuck a little post it on the spinner as well to label each of the colors (and in my very old version, the colors don’t go in the same order on the spinner that they do on the mat, so this proved to be very useful for me as I called out problems!)

Use the classic game Twister to practice all sorts of math facts! A great way to get kids moving and learning at the same time!

Then we were ready to play!

Use the classic game Twister to practice all sorts of math facts! A great way to get kids moving and learning at the same time!

To play:

Each of them stood at a corner of the mat, and I would spin the spinner and use whichever hand or foot it designated, i.e. right hand, left foot, etc. Then, instead of calling out the color, I would say an addition problem that corresponded to the appropriate answer.

For example, if I spun “Right hand yellow,” I would say something like, “Right hand, 4 + 2,” because yellow represents an answer of 6. Easy, right!?

Use the classic game Twister to practice all sorts of math facts! A great way to get kids moving and learning at the same time!

Play continues until they are sufficiently exhausted, or someone falls over!

A word of caution: be sure you are sitting away from the mat or holding the spinner out of sight, because once or twice my son saw the color I spun and didn’t have to actually figure out the addition problem. 😉

Our “Math Twister Game” was hugely successful, even though they needed a little help at times remembering their right from their left, and my son needed some help with the addition. But that’s what practice is for, right?

And while we used it to practice addition, this could easily be adapted to practice any number of math facts, including subtraction, multiplication, division or operations with integers!

Use the classic game Twister to practice all sorts of math facts! A great way to get kids moving and learning at the same time!

Want another fun way to help your kids practice mental math? Check out this post!

FREE mental math challenges to help kids practice important math skills!

And most of all, have FUN!

~Math Geek Mama

11 Comments

  1. I am always looking for active math games and this one is perfect! I can’t wait to try it with my kids. And I love that it allows to practice right and left. Thanks for sharing with us @LearningKidLinkup. I will be pinning and sharing!

  2. My daughter loves doing math, but is not a huge fan of sitting still lol. While she does have to sit still most times, this would be another great way to mix in some active learning. I like to have ideas like this in my arsenal so thanks for linking this one up at the Learning Kid Link-Up. I will be trying this for sure.

    1. Yes my son has trouble sitting still too, but does so much better when he can get moving or turn it into a game! They both had so much fun with this 🙂 I hope you do too!

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