Everything you need to know about 20 fun maths games for the classroom, including engaging activities that build confidence, problem-solving skills, and a love of maths.
Everything you need to know about 20 fun maths games for the classroom, including engaging activities that build confidence, problem-solving skills, and a love of maths.
Author
Mhairi Sim
Published
December 2025
Everything you need to know about 20 fun maths games for the classroom, including engaging activities that build confidence, problem-solving skills, and a love of maths.
Author
Mhairi Sim
Published
December 2025
Everything you need to know about 20 fun maths games for the classroom, including engaging activities that build confidence, problem-solving skills, and a love of maths.
Author
Mhairi Sim
Published
December 2025
Key takeaways
Bringing games into the classroom or at-home learning environment is one of the most effective ways to boost excitement and motivation during maths lessons! Whether you’re revising key skills or introducing new concepts, fun maths games offer a playful approach that keeps things interesting for our kiddos!
There’s no need to ask yourself, “What are some fun maths games my learners will enjoy?” We’ve done the hard work for you and have compiled a list of 20 tried-and-tested games that we’re sure your kiddos will love!
Set up stations around your room with maths problems and challenge your kiddos to solve them in groups. The groups must solve each problem correctly before moving on to the next station, and the first team to solve all of them wins!
Learners can each draw some digit cards (or you can use playing cards) and must arrange them to form the largest possible number. The student who makes the highest number wins! This is a perfect game to reinforce place value learning!
Start by selecting two learners to stand up and compete to answer a maths problem. The winner then moves on to challenge another classmate, with the winner again moving on to challenge the next player. This game can be used to revise any topic or just for a quick mental maths exercise between lessons!
Start your players off with four numbers. The challenge is to make 24 by using all numbers and the four operations. This game is a great maths starter to warm up those all-important problem-solving skills!
Create a short detective-style story in which each clue is a maths problem that your learners can solve. The overarching story and mystery will keep kiddos engaged as they solve each problem to crack the case!
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Start by filling clear jars with small items like cubes, counters, beads, or buttons. Then have your learners estimate the number of items inside, justifying their reasoning. If your kids love it, why not make the estimation station a weekly feature in your classroom with a prize for the closest guess each week?
Draw a Connect Four grid and write the products of multiplication problems in each space. Players will take turns solving the multiplication problems and can place a counter in each corresponding space. The first with four counters in a row is the winner!
Sudoku is a fantastic activity that encourages problem-solving skills and flexible thinking! Make this activity competitive by having kiddos complete Sudoku grids (kid-friendly versions are available), either solo or in teams, and declare the first to finish with accuracy the winner!
Create a Jeopardy-style board with categories such as fractions, word problems, or shapes. If making a board isn’t for you, then you can use these pre-made versions. Have teams play for points to bring in a competitive element as your kiddos build their maths skills!
Repurpose your old Jenga game to make maths Jenga! Write maths questions on the sides of each block, and once the tower is built, learners must correctly solve the question to pull it out from the tower.
Give pairs of learners a 100 square each, and as you call out clues, students can race to find and circle the correct numbers. Clues could be statements like “multiples of 7”, “prime numbers”, or “numbers with a digit sum of 7”.
A fun maths game of corners always goes down well as a warm-up or brain break! Label each of the four corners of the room with numbers (e.g. 14, 20, 100, 75) and read out questions. Students have 10 seconds to move to the corner with the correct answer. You can adapt this game to suit any topic you would like by just changing the questions or answers you provide.
Just like the classic TV game show, show your players five numbers and then give them a target number they need to reach using the numbers they have. They can add, subtract, multiply, or divide – the only rule is to use each number only once. For ease, try this digital version of Countdown on NRICH.
Challenge learners to act out maths vocabulary like “subtract”, “cube”, or “parallel” while their classmates try to guess. Maths charades is a fun way to reinforce maths vocabulary, and often, the memorable ways kids come up with to act the terms out really stick!
In pairs, students take turns rolling the dice, adding the numbers up each time in a running total. The goal is to be the first person to reach exactly 100. If a roll takes a learner past 100, they’ll then take that value off their total.
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Sum Swat is a lively game that kids love and get very competitive over! Write numbers, maths terminology or equations on the board – whatever your target topic is – then read out corresponding questions. Two students play at a time, each with a fly swatter, and they compete to be the first to swat the correct answer!
Students use their detective skills to figure out what the mystery number is based on a series of clues. Give your learners clues like “It’s even” and “It has three digits” until they guess correctly. The perfect game if you have a spare five minutes before the end of a lesson!
In this two-player game, each student flips over two number cards to form a fraction. They must compare the fractions and determine which player has the larger fraction – this player then wins the round. This game is a great way to reinforce that when it comes to fractions, a higher digit value does not necessarily mean a larger number.
Set up stations for mini Olympic events like straw javelin, paper plate discus, and pom pom shot put. Have your students measure the distances for each event and compare their results. For some cross-curricular learning, why not take this game to a PE lesson and have your learners measure distances and times as they complete actual Olympic sports such as track races, high jump, long jump, and shot put?
Each player picks a shape card in secret, and other players ask yes/no questions such as, “Is your shape symmetrical?” or “Does your shape have more than four sides?” until they can correctly guess the shape. The winner is the player who guessed the most shapes correctly.
Want to do more math puzzles? DoodleMaths is an award-winning maths app full of maths puzzles that are proven to double a child’s rate of progression with just 10 minutes of use a day!*
Filled with fun, interactive questions aligned to state standards, Doodle creates a unique work program tailored to each child’s needs, boosting their confidence and skills in math.
*Based on earning 24 stars a day in DoodleMaths. Read full study
Whether used as a warm-up, a brain break between lessons, or as a tool for revision or consolidation, these fun maths games will help students to deepen their understanding while enjoying maths!
Learners who enjoy these games will love exploring maths even more with the DoodleLearning maths app. It’s packed with fun maths games, interactive challenges, and a motivating reward system that encourages kids to practice key skills at their own pace.
Parents, sign up for a DoodleMaths subscription and see your child become a maths wizard!
Lesson credits
Mhairi Sim
Mhairi is an experienced teacher, freelance writer and parent. After completing her bachelor's degree in Psychology, she graduated as a teacher from the University of Strathclyde. She then built experience teaching across KS1 and KS2 throughout the UK. In addition to working in mainstream education, Mhairi specialised in the additional support needs sector, including social, emotional, and behavioural support.
Mhairi
Mhairi is an experienced teacher, freelance writer and parent. After completing her bachelor's degree in Psychology, she graduated as a teacher from the University of Strathclyde. She then built experience teaching across KS1 and KS2 throughout the UK. In addition to working in mainstream education, Mhairi specialised in the additional support needs sector, including social, emotional, and behavioural support.
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