Show HN: Silly math games to make learning fun for K through 3rd grade (opens in new tab)

I am willing to pay $1000 for a math game that won't be silly. I'm not even kidding. I tried to find something that would spark interest, captivate, but I had little luck with math games.

I wrote my own (if you scroll my comment history) math game/app which is little bit different and partially solves the problem.

But I am constantly looking for anything that would be cool, captivating, and educational.

Is there any evidence, from the academic literature or otherwise, that math games improve educational outcomes? (Sorry, I know that sounds like a wet blanket statement and I am not discouraging the OP from trying to make an impact here. I am just curious.) Also, I tried to play a couple of games (e.g., https://www.mindlygames.com/game/skip-counting-by-5-dino-soa...), but it has been stuck "loading" for the entire duration of how long it took me to write this comment.

My 14 year old son was frustrated with "Fun" math games as they were not really fun. So he started building his own games in p5.js and recently he launched these games at https://thegamebox.ca/ He has been making these games since he was 10yo, so there is a progression in quality. Last game he made is not a math game but a puzzle game (Red Remover) he used to play and love when he was very young and was no longer available. He has done all the graphics as well for these games.

My daughter is in 1st grade and really enjoys playing blackjack with me(Dad). It's an amazing metaphor for addition and gives some good entrypoints for talking about probability and decision making.

We play for candy. Surprisingly she hasn't eaten any of it yet. She seems to be balancing her desire to beat dad by having more candy and her desire to eat candy. It's been great bonding time too.

Next up, a similar game with other operations.

A plug for "Math from Three to Seven: The Story of a Mathematical Circle for Preschoolers" seems warranted here. It has great ideas for fun things to do with kids as well.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/12689040-math-from-th...

In the 90s, I used to love playing Number Munchers on the Apple IIc.

My son responds super well to gamified learning. What I found is that there are plentiful options when it comes to math... but not as much so when it comes to reading.

When he was in kindergarten during the disrupted school year of 2020/21... I created a "reading version" of the classic Battle Ship game. Instead of a 10x10 grid of letters and numbers it was a 10x10 grid of K-2 "sight words" that I would randomly choose and draw onto a grid (in Excel) that could be printed.

Then we'd play by reading and repeating sight words to indicate the coordinates to attack. He loved it!

Fwiw, in "Numberman's Pizza Party | Addition within 5", after the question (and answer) has changed, clicking on a box with the old (now incorrect) answer yields correct pizza. And the reverse. It seems box correctness is set at creation, rather than reflecting the current question? Which sets up a dynamic of look at question, click on "correct for current question" box, get told it's wrong.

Man, takes me back to the days of "The Magic of Multiplication 1" on TI-99/4A:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PoPUMrmmmUs

My sister (four at the time) called it "Mockablecation". It's how I learned my times tables a full year ahead of my class.

How did you make these games? I think it’s fun but would it be possible to make it multiplayer? Say two kids, one on each device, and join the game to play against one another.

I don't have kids, but I love the UX here! Keep it up :)

The grades links at the bottom of the page are broken for me.

The music on the one I tried is awesome!!!

Worked very well with 5yo daughter; she and mum thought it was very good ("not too busy, extremely clear").

One small thing that upset daughter (only a little bit) was getting "Game over!" - which I think just meant she'd come to the end of the game, but which she took as "You lost!" (probably as a result of watching older brother play games). If that's right, then consider changing wording to "Well done, you've reached the end of the game!" rather than the (more negative, to many people) "Game over!".

I played through two of the games twice and if I'm not mistaken, the sequence of numbers is always the same. Could they be randomized? I have a feeling children would learn the pattern and not focus on numbers.

Random thought that I'm not sure is even a good thought. Tried the number pizza man game, and one mechanic which I thought may be interesting is if the distribution of values in the pizza boxes changes as time goes on. Rather than maybe skipping ahead after a while if the student doesn't get it, slowly change the randomization to include more and more, and then perhaps only exclusively, the right answer. This would allow a kid to still "get it," while still engaging them in the game mechanic.

Cool stuff!

I'm actually in the process of writing a game for my nephew, who is turning 9.

My game is going to be more about going to school and encourage him to have fun learning and socialising; perhaps shooting zombies, protecting/getting power-up from the school, collecting books for points.

He lives in a poor household where the mother doesn't want to do anything that isn't life-or-death. The kids (he's oldest of 3) are alive regardless of going to school,and the mother didn't need school, so there's a real need for some sort of external encouragement to push beyond that.

It seems trite, but I do wish that fortnite had some "stay in school" message, even just in the title sequence / main menu.

This is awesome. Will put my K and 2nd grader on it later.

But also, your website is fast. I know it's all static and pretty easy to do, but yet most people get it wrong, so kudos to you on that!

Great stuff!

Side note: the background music on one of the games (Space Race | Three-Digit Addition - Adding 10) reminded me of this Bollywood song: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mXkbWKr5ovU

Thanks for sharing. Im always on the lookout for good teaching aids. Unfortunately I find this too stimulating for me to present to my kids. I prefer to show my kids media that is calming and beautiful rather than "fun".

I can't load any games either and get the error: "Uncaught Error: Audio key "menuMusic" missing from cache" when it happens.

Hopefully it's a quick fix as I'd love to check them out closer!

Some additional consequences for just trying all the answers - or a mode where there are, if you've got a kid who will just click on them all instead of thinking.

The Dino Eggs Multiplication by 6 game has the same order each time, which might make kids remember the order instead of the multiplication facts.

This looks neat, thanks for sharing! Any comments on what resources you used to tailor the games to a specific grade level?

Very cool. Although looking for something at a 4th or 5th grade level for my 3rd grader :)

Blocked by corporate firewall :(

nice work! I tried a couple and they look great