Math Practice with a Side of Fun

I have found that math is a subject that is learned best when approached in many different ways to cement learning.  Other than our math curriculum of choice, Math U See, we get our math practice in with a side of fun.  I’m not a fan of drill and kill where you spend hours going over and over and over the same facts.  I do feel a bit of drill has it’s place and a little bit of motivation goes a long way.Today I got out this pattern block set and a set of flashcards.  The game was simple – for every correct answer you get a piece to your picture.  When you have all the pieces you are done with drill for the day.  As you can see from the picture above Emma was making a butterfly.  She worked on addition facts, as did Joseph.  Makayla worked on division facts.  Just a few minutes of practice was all we did.

You can use anything for the motivation.  I know Joseph would have loved getting Lego pieces from a pile for each correct answer, so we’ll probably do that next time with an empty bingo board to fill with a piece in each square.  Grapes, cheerios, chocolate chips – a little motivation goes a long way.Games are another way to make math practice fun.  Makayla and I spent 10 minutes working with fractions today as well.  Math U See spends an entire book on fractions (Epsilon).  She won’t begin that book until mid-summer because we started math over in 3rd grade when we realized Saxon wasn’t working for her.  That’s fine by me.  One of the perks to homeschooling is going at each child’s pace instead of rushing ahead or dragging things out.  We’re using the card game Fractazmic just so we can play with fractions a bit while she finishes off her current level in Math U See.  We also own Pyramath, which is another fun way to practice math facts.  

The list goes on, but instead of list everything we do, I want to hear from you . . .

What are some of the ways you get extra math practice in outside your regular curriculum?