If your Y1 child is good at maths, what…

[Flockameanie]

… activities/ games / puzzles do they enjoy? Bonus point if it’s stuff he can do on his own 😒

I’m not looking for actual maths stuff (workbooks or apps) as I don’t want him to get ahead and then find school boring. But stuff that will stimulate his mathsy mind for fun. We’ve got plenty of board games, building stuff (Lego, magnets, etc) and a beebot type coding mouse thingy. He’s got a rubics cube (not that interested). He used to do a lot of jigsaws, but has gone off them (even the adult 1000-piece type ones). He does get a bit bored of stuff quite quickly…

I need some inspiration for ways to keep his mind engaged over the summer (otherwise he just flops around moaning and drives us all mad!)

Oh yes, I forgot about cricket! And not my DSs but mathsy DH used to love playing darts with his granddad and says it was fantastic for his arithmetic.

Monopoly?

Year 1 DS - working at Greater Depth in all maths areas enjoys -

1. mental maths challenges (both doing and challenging us) whilst in cars or queues or bath times
2. Coding projects from Hour or code and on Scratch Junior and Minecraft Education Edition (he was past botley the coding robot last year)
3. the chess kids (?) website
4. Maths challenge apps on times tables, and fractions games etc

He’s also massively into cricket and on the local Under 8s. V much enjoys highlights and getting involved with run rate etc

We bought DS some maths puzzle colouring books.

He loved maths, but struggled with pen control and had little interest in anything artistic or creative. So we used maths to help him find skills and enjoyment in other areas.

Monopoly! Let him be the banker.

Rummikub.
Risk - we have a 2 player version which is good called Balance of Power.
Carcassonne.
Big Money - it's a bit like Monopoly but you have to buy stocks and shares.

We got a tutor. It became obvious very early on that the school couldn’t meet his needs. His tutor keeps him engaged, maths lessons at school are a bit of a waste of time.

Puzzle cubes like these. DS has always been very good at maths and puzzles, he enjoyed jigsaws but got a bit bored of them so DH bought him some of these I stead and he really enjoyed them.

We have quite a few maths-based games from the Happy Puzzle Company - Genius Square is a good one and also Rush Hour which might be another version of the game called Traffic Jam

My son did endless endless jigsaws . And Lego.
magic cubes are also good
he’s very mathematical now at 8

DS likes chess, jigsaws and Minecraft creative mode.

I know you don't want apps but DD (Yr2) uses Numbots as part of her school work/homework - that app has really helped her at learning number bonds & recalling them quickly.

Also Gravitrax

Baking - weighing, measuring. Halving/ doubling amounts. Time, temperature, volume, estimating. Nutrition and calories if you really wanted to.
Board games/ dice games- uno, Yahtzee, trixx
Dm used to be a TA and said you could teach most things through baking and board games! Have fun

Think Fun is great - gravity maze and traffic jam we’re big hits here. Also Osmo Tangram - it used an iPad but with physical pieces to manipulate which the iPad recognised as right or not, then moves in to harder puzzles.

We've played a card game which my mum made up when she was a child for her siblings. The dc have loved it from about year R onwards and still flock to play it even though dd1 has just left uni (with a maths degree).

You play 10 rounds. You deal the cards then leave one open.
Round one you get one card. The person who starts can choose to pick the open card or a new card. They throw one card. The next person can pick the card that's just been thrown or a new one etc.

The aim of round one is to get an Ace (or number 1). When someone gets that, they're out, and everyone else scores the number in the hand against them.
Round two you get two cards. You need to get a combination that are 2s. So 2x twos or 2x Aces.

All the way up to round 10.

So eg in round 6, you might go out with 5,A 3,2,A 6
Your opponent might have 6, 4,2 8,3,A so 6 and 4,2 add up to 6 so don't count and they have 12 (8+3+1) against them.

After round 10 you add up the scores and the lowest score is the winner.

You may want to play open hands the first few times (so you can make suggestions to help)

It's known as "Granny's Game" in our house.

Oh... forgot to say you remove the picture cards when playing.

Pizza fractions? Smaths? Both are games you'd need to play with someone else though. Or yahtzee?

Suduko is easy enough, either on paper or or an ipad.

And we also have the IQ puzzlers: easy and portable.

My daughter loved the travel maths puzzle book, you can just dip in and out of them.

I second @horseymum with baking. DS enjoys the weighing and measuring, and I get him to work out quantities when doubling up a recipe.

Quixx not trixx!

Some great ideas on here!

I know you didn’t want apps but Squeebles are a good way to build maths skills (with little parental intervention) as there are lots of levels to play, if that floats his boat. I wouldn’t worry about covering content before school does it as they would pick up his higher skills and provide work accordingly.

Definitely baking, mentioned already.

Mini bridge would be great - it’s quicker to pick up than “proper” bridge.

Would he enjoy magic tricks? I know it isn’t specifically linked to maths but the processes involved can be fairly similar, and you can get simple kits/books for his age group.

Adult join the dots?
What about sudoku or wordle type puzzles?

Scratch
”Scratch is a free programming language and online community where you can create your own interactive stories, games, and animations.” Scratch MIT edu
(just needs an email to save projects.)