A Christmas Math Game Where Every Sum Is a Small Story
December maths worksheets tend to be ordinary sums with a holly leaf in the margin. This game tells each question as a short story instead: nine cookies are left out for Santa and he eats four, six presents sit under the tree and three more are added on Christmas Eve, eight snowmen stand in the garden until the sun comes out. Every question is adding or taking away, with numbers from two to ten.
Underneath each story is a row of the things it is about. For adding, the two groups sit side by side; for taking away, the ones that leave are faded rather than removed, so the picture still adds up to the number the story started with. A child who is not yet doing sums in their head can count the presents with a finger, and the written number sentence is right there beneath the picture to connect the two.
The answer buttons are large, and the three wrong options are the mistakes children actually make — one too many, one too few, or the result of doing the opposite operation — rather than random numbers that are easy to rule out. A round is ten questions with no repeats; at the end there is a score, a time, and the full list of questions with their answers to go through together.
It suits the last weeks of the autumn term, when the timetable has gone and something seasonal that still counts as maths is exactly what is needed. On a projector the stories and pictures are big enough for a class to count aloud before someone comes up to tap. Nothing is downloaded or uploaded, and there is no account. For the same practice without the stories, try the math games for kids, and for more seasonal games, the Christmas games page.
How to play Christmas Math Game
- Press start to deal ten Christmas story problems.
- Read the story, then count the presents, elves or reindeer in the picture if you need to.
- Tap the answer you think is right from the four choices.
- See straight away whether it was right, then move on to the next story.
- At the end, check your score and go through any you missed.