When your child comes home after a long day at school, the last thing she wants to do is sit down with a math worksheet for practice. Even half days as a 4th grade student can be stressful. The intense concentration needed to learn is taxing for your child – let alone the idea of having to sit down immediately upon arriving home and doing mathematics. Instead, try these games for 4th grade math practice that you can do at home!
1. Positive and Negative Numbers Card Game
Grab a deck of cards and reinforce positive and negative numbers while having fun with your child. This activity does require an even number of players, so you can either play or sit out depending on how many kids you are working with.
Remove the face cards from the deck and shuffle the number cards. Tell your child that red cards are negative numbers and black cards are positive. Deal out the cards evenly between players.
Have everyone turn over their top card. The player with the highest number, accounting for positives and negatives, takes all of the cards and places them at the bottom of his or her stack. If two players have a matching value, they each take an equal number of cards. The player who gathers all of the cards or has the largest stack when time is up wins.
This game is fun and easy to do on the go. Think about carrying a deck of cards with you – especially if you are going to an amusement park – how long do you usually end up standing in line, waiting – trying to entertain your fourth grade student or your older kids. Having a deck of cards at the ready is an easy way to both entertain them and enhance addition and subtraction skills, or even use it as a tool in a word problem. But, you can also just play a game of War for some fun in between math practice. War is also a good way for younger students to begin to understand high/low numbers. Maybe you should bring two sets of cards.
2. Division Bingo
Much of 4th grade math practice involves practicing basic math facts. Division Bingo focuses on division facts.
