Fourth grade is a key year for a child’s math education. Granted, every grade in elementary school math is important, but your 4th grade math student faces new challenges as they transition from the flashcards and memorization of their younger years to more advanced concepts. (The type of concepts that will ultimately prepare them for algebra and geometry in middle and high school!)
Fourth grade students struggling with math can benefit from an afterschool math program or additional tutoring. But all kids at this age, whether proficient or requiring extra help, can keep their skills sharp with quick, enjoyable math drills outside of school.
Here are five effective and fun math drills and games that you can introduce to your 4th grader:
1. License plate game
Parents may feel like chauffeurs in their children’s busy lives, but time in the car can be turned into math opportunities. There are numbers all over the road- like on car license plates!
Tell your 4th grader to find a car and read the numbers on the plate.
From these numbers, there are endless possibilities for math drills:
Double the number, or divide it by two
Multiply the digits together
Turn the first two digits into one number and multiply by the third digit
Round to the nearest ten or hundred
Reverse the number and add it to the original
2. Multiplication and division dice
Does your fourth grader need to brush up on multiplication and division skills?
Roll two dice and multiply the generated two-digit number by the result of a third die, or divide the larger number by the smaller (don’t forget the remainder!).
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For more of a multiplication challenge, add another die to the second number. This easy game for fourth graders provides multiplication and division work.
And of course, you can also use this for addition and subtraction practice too!
3. Multiplication War
A deck of cards is great for a math game!
Take out the jacks, queens, and kings, and use the cards to generate two or three-digit numbers. You can use the deck to play a game similar to multiplication dice, or you can play multiplication war.
Flip two cards, multiply them, and the higher product wins the opponent’s cards – just like regular war. For more of a challenge, use three cards at a time, generating a two-digit number to be multiplied by the third card; you might not get many wars, but your fourth grader will get a LOT of math!
4. Mind-bending multiples
Most fourth grade math students have had experience counting multiples of single-digit numbers and 10 (e.g., count by threes: 3, 6, 9, 12 …).
But have they ever counted by 14s or 27s?
This math drill will challenge kids to add and multiply in their heads.
Pick a low (at first) two-digit number and count by that number to at least past 100. For an added twist, ask your child to guess how many times the two-digit number will be counted in the three-digit number (e.g., about how many times will 19 go into 200?). This adds estimation and a little bit of division into the process.
5. Grocery store math
A trip to the grocery store opens the door to many real-world situations they may see in a math word problem!
Weighing produce: how much will five oranges cost at $1.75 a pound?
Determine actual prices on sale items: if eight packages of ramen noodles are $2.00, how much does each package cost?
Keeping a running tally of the food in your cart: use rounding and estimating skills to find the total.
An otherwise boring trip to the store becomes more exciting when you make it seem like a math game!
Bonus: 4th Grade Math Worksheets
Do youremember getting handed a math worksheet in elementary school and having to complete it in a certain amount of time?
Math worksheets are an extremely popular and quick way for teachers to deliver fact fluency practice!
Your child can work on a variety of math skills if you find the right worksheet.
Decimal fractions? Place value understanding? Multi-digit multiplication?
Absolutely! There are workbooks and online resources to ensure your child gets extra practice with the unit covered in the classroom.
Need the help of a math tutor?
Fourth grade is an extremely big year for students! Is your child having trouble with fourth grade concepts? Or, are math skills from third grade still rusty?
A Thinkster Math tutor can help your child with a variety of math concepts! Our online assessments can help pinpoint specific topics, concepts, and units that your child needs to improve in.
Your child always works with the same dedicated math tutor, whose goal is to help your child develop a variety of math and life skills.
If you’re looking for online math tutoring to help your child, you can try Thinkster risk-free.
Thinkster provides a full-fledged online tutoring platform (driven by AI, behavioral, and data science), as well as supplemental math worksheets, math homework help, test prep, and more. Our Parent Insights App allows you to monitor your student‘s work and learning improvements at any time.
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