Year 3 maths activities

Mhairi author

Author
Mhairi Sim

Published
July 2025

Key takeaways

  • Children’s confidence and ability grow when maths feels achievable and fun – Positive experiences in maths now can make all the difference when it comes to your kiddo’s future academic performance.
  • Hands-on learning builds deeper understanding – Practical tasks help students tackle tricky concepts by allowing them to explore and experiment with the activity.
  • Reinforce learning at home with resources available online – Our recommended selection of online games, interactive apps, and printable activities and worksheets is a fantastic way to support learners.

Year 3 is a pivotal time for our little learners as they transition to the Key Stage 2 curriculum. Here, they will begin to build on the foundations they developed in Year 1 and Year 2, and explore more complicated aspects of these mathematical concepts. 

This can be overwhelming for kids, so it’s important to help them relax into these new ideas. Engaging, and more importantly, fun activities offer kids a learning opportunity that doesn’t feel so scary and instead allows them to feel excited and curious about their learning! 

Be it in the classroom or at home, having some fun Year 3 maths activities up your sleeve can help to keep your kiddos motivated and engaged while reinforcing key learning objectives this year. 

Let’s take a look at some fun and educational Year 3 maths activities that you can use in school or at home to support your learners!

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Fun and educational Year 3 maths activities

Maths is a tricky subject for some, but hands-on, game-based learning is a real winner. Here is our list of tried-and-tested Year 2 maths activities that teach and reinforce key maths concepts, broken down by skill!

Number: place value

Kids learn best when they’re having fun – it’s a scientific fact! Studies have found that gamified learning increases learners’ motivation and ability to take in and retain information! This is where hands-on and game-based learning activities come in. Here are some creative ways to make Year 3 maths exciting for your kiddos:

1. Peas in a pod (addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication)

Using small cards or PostIt notes, create matching pairs with maths equations and answers on corresponding cards. Shuffle the cards and give one to each learner. The goal is for them to move around the room and try to find the person who has the card that corresponds to theirs!

2. Maths bingo (number)

There are lots of ways to play maths bingo! Create or print ready-made bingo cards with numerical answers (e.g. 15, 52, 30) and read out questions that target whichever subject you’d like. For example; 

3. Food fractions

Using paper plates and pens, or coloured cards, scissors and glue, have your kids create some pizzas with all their favourite toppings. In groups, have your kiddos cut their pizzas up into different fractions – have some create halves, quarters, thirds, sixths, and so on. Then, let your students compare their fractions and see what they notice about which ones are equivalent.

4. Maths charades

Create cards with some maths vocabulary or problems on them (e.g. ‘triangle’, ‘multiples of 3’, ‘right angle’, ‘the number 6’). Players act out or describe the term on their card without saying the exact phrase, while the other children guess! This game is a great way to encourage problem-solving and communication skills while revising some maths concepts!

5. Times table card flip

Using a standard deck of cards, children will take turns to flip two cards over and multiply the two numbers. Be warned, this can get quite competitive as a team game, but it is a super fun way to practice the tricky times tables that our kiddos will tackle this year!

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Select a year group

  • Number

  • Shape, space and measure

  • Patterns

  • Number and place value

  • Addition and subtraction

  • Multiplication and division

  • Operations (ASMD)

  • Fractions

  • Measure

  • Shape/geometry

  • Statistics

  • Ratio and proportion

  • Algebra

  • Probability

Sample questions

Indoor & outdoor maths games for Year 3

Putting maths into practice in real-world contexts and having kids physically get involved with their learning are ideal ways to make maths more engaging. Here are some exciting ideas for both indoor and outdoor maths activities:

Indoor activities
  • Times Table Twister:
    Bring some added maths fun to the well-loved game of Twister by placing some multiplication facts on the Twister board and calling out a product. The goal for your kiddos is to place their hands or feet on the matching factor pairs. For example, if you called out 27, the player should place their hands or feet on 3 and 9.  
  • Maths Board Games
    There are many fantastic maths board games that make for excellent Year 3 maths activities! Good choices for your learners include these games that develop skills on telling the time, counting money, and times tables.
  • Maths Scavenger Hunt

    Place problems or maths questions around the classroom or your home and set your learners on a hunt for some treasure! For every correct answer they give, they’ll get another clue that’ll lead them to the next clue. You can do this activity for any maths topic – I particularly love this activity as an end-of-term maths revision activity to consolidate the past few weeks’ learning.

Outdoor activities
  • Measure Perimeter
    Combine 2D shape revision with work on calculating perimeter! Draw 2D shapes with chalk on the ground, then let your Year 3 kiddos measure the sides to calculate the perimeter. For an extra challenge, you could task them with measuring the perimeter of the entire playground!

  • Shape Hunt
    A shape hunt is always lots of fun for little learners. Give your kiddos a list of 3D shapes and set them loose in the playground to find them! If you have access to iPads, you could have your students take pictures of the shapes they find to bring back to class and discuss later.

  • Estimation Stations
    Set up different estimation stations around the playground where children record their estimates, then measure or count to check how close they were. Stations could include:
    • How many leaves on a branch?
    • How many steps to the fence?
    • How many stones in the jar?
    • How many bricks on the wall?

Printable & digital resources

In recent years, a wealth of resources has become accessible online, including downloadable, printable activities and digital resources. Here are some examples you can use with Year 3 learners at school or home:

Printable
  • Bingo boards
    Printable bingo boards are a great resource to have for your Year 3 maths activities. Here are some free printable bingo cards that we love!

 

 

  • Maths maze
    Maths mazes are a little complex at first, but they’re great fun for kiddos once they’re familiar with them! If they don’t already know, you’ll first need to explain to your learners what a maths maze is and how to make a maths maze. Once they’ve got the idea and tried out a few pre-made maths mazes, it’s time for them to make their own!
Digital
  • DoodleLearning maths app / DoodleTables
    Digital maths games are a fantastic resource to reinforce key Year 3 maths learning. The DoodleMaths app is packed with fun activities that align with the National Curriculum and are proven to boost learners’ maths confidence and skills!

  • NRICH
    NRICH have a wealth of brilliant curriculum-linked Year 3 maths activities available for free. This helpful curriculum map has activities linked to specific National Curriculum learning objectives.

  • Kahoot!
    If you have never used Kahoot! in your classroom, then you are missing out! You can create your own quizzes or search the existing library for something suitable to test your kiddos’ knowledge on a topic. These highly interactive and fun quizzes can then be done at home for homework or in class on devices.

Supporting key Year 3 maths skills

Each of the activities we’ve suggested in this article supports learning for Year 3 maths, aiming to help get learners off to a great start in the KS2 curriculum.

Activities like ‘Maths Bingo’ and ‘Times Table Card Flip’ build learners’ fluency in the four operations (addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication) and help them to improve their recall of multiplication facts. 

Taking learning outside with activities like measuring perimeter and ‘Shape Hunt’ not only makes these activities more engaging and fun, but also provides a real-world context for these skills. 

Creative tasks like ‘Food Fractions’ allow learners to physically explore complex concepts like fractions and equivalence, while ‘Maths Charades’ and scavenger hunts develop problem-solving and communication skills. 

Activities like the ones we’ve suggested allow children to be active, be creative, and get hands-on with their learning both at home and in the classroom. By combining structured learning and opportunities for fun and play, we are allowing maths to be both enjoyable and accessible for our little ones, helping them to develop a lasting enthusiasm for the subject.

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