An Argument for Math Card Games for stations at school and play at home.
Why Math Card Games Are the Cheat Code to Being Good at Math!
The only way to get better at something is to practice it. Building self discipline is tough, especially if it’s something we don’t want to do. I personally hate running on a treadmill. If running on a treadmill were the only way to get in some cardio, I would weigh a lot more than I do. However, I love playing basketball. Running is very much a part of basketball. I will happily run around a basketball court for two hours, even if it means I have to be up late at night and suffer through the next day on low sleep. Running on the dreaded treadmill in my basement for ten minutes feels like an eternity to me. It’s much more convenient. Logically it makes way more sense, and it’s more efficient. But it’s not fun, and I really hate every minute of it. This is because games make exercise fun. Games can also make learning fun. When the game is structured to practice the skills that will make you better at math, people will happily spend way more time practicing those skills than they would have otherwise thought possible.
What is Math Fluency and Why Does It Matter?
Math fluency is the ability to solve problems quickly, accurately and flexibly by applying basic facts and applying strategies flexibly. Let’s take a look at how human memory works with Math Fluency. We all have long term memory and short term memory. Long term memory is when you are trying to help your child solve a math problem and while you haven’t added fractions with uncommon denominators in two decades, you do still remember how to do it. You still know how to do it, you just hadn’t done it recently, but it comes back to you. You just have to retrieve that memory that is stored in the dusty attic somewhere in your mind. Short term memory, or working memory, is different. Short term memory is all the things you are currently thinking about. So when you solve a math problem it’s all the various parts you are combining together in the moment. Think of it as all the things your brain is carrying at one time. All humans can hold about seven things in their short term memory before our brains start to hurt.
So why is it that some people can solve math problems so effortlessly and others struggle, if everyone has the same amount of short term memory? The secret is math fluency. When you become fluent in something, you just know it. If you are fluent in a language, you don’t have to remember what word to use to describe something. That thing and the word are synonymous. You see a chair and you don’t have to think, what is the word for chair? It’s a chair. It’s just what it is. If you were learning a language you might have to pause while you were speaking and remember what the word for chair was in order to use the word in the sentence you were trying to say. When we increase our math fluency, math becomes just as automatic. Just like you don’t have to calculate 2+2=4, you can memorize basic multiplication facts. You don’t need to use a strategy to know that 4 groups of 12 are 48.
As math fluency improves, pressure is taken off your working memory. Math facts become automatic. As things become memorized it frees up your working memory to solve problems and apply strategies in different ways because you aren’t stuck trying to remember something that you have already memorized. This is why, for some people, math just seems so effortless, but for others it seems like such a chore. If your working memory is overloaded doing too many things, it is stressful! The way to fix it is through repeated practice. This is why math games are so powerful. They motivate students to train their brains in a fun way.
How to Build Math Confidence and Defeat Math Anxiety
Math anxiety is real. It is stressful. It’s also a vicious circle because when we are anxious we perform worse, which reinforces the negative results we were trying to avoid. So how do you defeat math anxiety? The answer is simple to say, yet hard to do. You defeat math anxiety through practice.
If your child takes a test, or comes to a problem and they start to freeze up, they aren’t truly ready (assuming it’s a fair test or appropriate problem.) This can be frustrating to hear, especially when you or your child may have spent torturous hours studying or practicing. The reason why working through the problems seems so difficult is often related to overworked short term memory. Due to a lack of mastery of previous concepts or a lack of math fluency, every single step, every single calculation, is all the more difficult.
This may sound pretty dire, but think about the opposite. What if your child had better math fluency? Every step along the way in their math journey becomes easier! Practice not only takes less time, but becomes much less painful. Math problems become much easier when you can easily see how numbers connect together in different ways. As your student becomes better at math, instead of dreading it, they actually look forward to it. We typically get better at things we like, mainly because we just keep doing them. Then we like that we are good at it, so we do more of it. In the same way math anxiety can feel like being trapped, once a child figures out how to get out, it can have the opposite reinforcing effects. This is why some people actually love math and others can’t stand it. They are just in opposite cycles of positive and negative reinforcement.
So how do you get this valuable math fluency that is the cornerstone of success? Practice. Experience. Contrary to most people’s elementary school experience, this doesn’t just have to be boring worksheets. Math games are an excellent way to build math fluency! Matica Quest the Card Game was specifically designed by expert elementary and middle school math teachers so that kids would build math fluency and have a great time doing it. Breaking numbers apart and thinking of different ways to combine numbers with different operations is the core game play of the game. The game is designed to reward each player for trying different strategies. The game can be played collaboratively and used as a number talk with students showing each other how problems can be solved. The game can also be played very competitively with players being very motivated to find ways to solve problems more efficiently.
Check out Matica Quest the card game today and help your child turn their math anxiety into math confidence!