Websites That Will Help Your Students Practice Their Math Skills
Sarah Picard Taylor

As classrooms fill up with computers and schools build more space for computer labs, teachers are often asked to give students time to use computer resources. Finding the appropriate games and activities for students can be difficult and time consuming. This short list of math websites will give your students the chance to explore safe and fun computer time. Enjoy these websites during choice time in your classroom or for all the students in the computer lab.

http://harcourtschool.com/activity/willy/willy.html
This game asks two players to take turns getting around a game board by rolling electronic dice and setting a watch for a given time on which they land. Children like the sound effects. When the children set the time on the watch for a given digital time, they can see the hands of the clock move in half hour increments.

http://harcourtschool.com/activity/telling_time_gr1/
This time telling game asks students to match the time given on a clock with three possible digital clocks. When students answer correctly, they move on and after answering several correct in a row, a time clock whistle blows to signal their “time on the clock” is over.

Funbrain.com has plenty of math games to choose from and this race track game pushes students to use their addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in new ways. Students not only have to perform an operation, but they need to play against the computer that is also performing a calculation.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/numbertime/games/mend.shtml
This game helps students gain visual and conceptual knowledge of the 100 chart or grid. Many math curriculums ask children to navigate a 10 x 10 100 chart to solve two digit addition and subtraction problems. As a former second grade teacher, I noticed some of my students struggling with the use of the 100 chart. It seemed as though they were not yet comfortable with the way it was arranged and they struggled to locate numbers on the chart. This game will help them do that work. A little caterpillar crawls across the grid and takes away 4 numbers and puts those four numbers off to the right. Then the students have to put them back in the correct spot on the grid. Students get lots of positive reinforcement as the caterpillar congratulates them on each correct move on the board.

http://teams.lacoe.edu/documentation/classrooms/linda/algebra/activities/balance/balance.html
This website helps children learn basic math facts by comparing the amount of blocks on a balance scale. Students who excel with visuals and spatial support will enjoy this game.

Try some of these sites with your students during your time in the computer lab, or give them to parents as resources to use at home. The students will enjoy the time with the colorful graphics and technology, and you will be happy with their increasing mathematical knowledge.