12 Tools to Make Math Exciting → Royal Baloo

We have a habit when we go on road trips to buy a bunch of new toys and activity booklets in hopes that they will be exciting enough that we can make it through the road trip. Granted, it works pretty well. I actually hide the new things until we hit the first breaking point. Then I whip them out and everything is settled for another hour or two. I use the same idea in our educational pursuits. I keep a few fun tools in stock (hidden, of course) for that time when we hit a breaking point and need something to bring us back. I tend to collect these things during sales (yard sales, homeshool sales, and naturally, Amazon sales). Today is Prime day at Amazon.

You can get 30 days of free amazon prime and snag up some of these deals. (You can cancel your Amazon Prime at anytime and it’s not a hassle. They’re really great about it! Although, I think you’ll love it and not want to cancel. Getting items in 2 days is amazing.)

So I said, just yesterday, that you probably have everything you need to make math fun right in your house. Right now! And I stand by that. You don’t need to buy anything. However, as I was browsing these deals for Amazon Prime Day, I thought “I have got to share this!”. Sometimes a new tool is all that’s needed to get kids invested. Are these needs? Absolutely not. Would they come in useful? Most likely, yes. Is Amazon Prime Day the day to pick up these relatively unnecessary but really cool math products? Yes, very much yes.

I’m going to specifically mark things we have now, have had in the past, or are going to purchase today.

Math Dice: I’ve never played this game, but dice are very very popular in our house. Even if we never play the game I guarantee we will get a lot of use out of these dice. This is in my cart right now!
Early Learning Center Math Discovery: This little (and very inexpensive) set has pretty much everything you could want for teaching hands-on math. If you feel under-prepared, this set is for you.
LEGO Duplo Math Train: LEGO – good. Train – good. Math – good. We have this LEGO set (although I believe we got it at a yard sale) and it is great. The train, the numbers – all fun. Plus, it’s LEGO! Can’t go wrong there!
Math Magic Puzzles and Games: This set really makes math a game. Any kid into magic will probably love this set. We have this in our cart too (Maybe combine it with a Harry Potter unit?)
Monkey Math – An Addition Game: This game is all about practicing basic math facts, and I’m all about playing to learn math facts. And it’s monkeys! I am debating on buying this one…
Abacus for Addition and Subtraction: Wow! I love this abacus. If we didn’t have an abacus, I would buy it. I might actually buy it anyway because I think it looks so much more intuitive. I think the abacus is amazing anyhow…this one just looks twice as amazing.

7. Math Dice Tournament Kit: As I mentioned before, I don’t know anything about this math dice game. But you can’t go wrong with more dice. It says it teaches addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. How versatile! This is definitely in our cart.

8. Sumoku – crossword style math game: Haven’t played this either but it does look like a very engaging math game. Plus, those numbers would come in useful in many other ways.

9. Hot Dots Jr Numbers and Counting: The boys are a bit old for this, but they would haven’t loved it years ago. Getting a pen just like adults! Just for them. Yeah, it would have been a complete hit.

10. Peg Stacker Number Express: We don’t have this set, but we have another peg set by Lauri and love it. I really appreciate that this is a train and that each number has the right amount of holes for pegs. What a fun set to do counting, number recognition, even basic addition!

11. Math Memory Game: We play memory all the time and this set would just make it all easier. We have similar cards made by the same company (ABC set, counting, and a few others) and they are durable!

12. Kids Bank Play Money: We have a money set (not this one, but same idea) and it is so useful for learning money. I like using real money too, but we don’t do a lot of cash. So that means I have to go out and get cash. I’d rather just use the fake money.

These deals are for today only (for most of them. Some might last longer, but that’s a risk you’ll have to take!)

These 12 items are only scraping the surface of what is available. There are so many more options for science, technology, and engineering. I’m looking at about 25 more things which puts me way over budget.

Check out Amazon Prime Day STEM Deals!

Completely unrelated, but this is my dream vacuum!! 58% off!!! (Can we all appreciate for a second how adult it is to have a dream vacuum? Maybe I am actually growing up)