Play to learn

This site is full of games that require problem solving and different math concepts. As a teacher, it would be cool if they were in sections by the content they reinforce, but it is not too hard to go through a few of them to find a couple useful games. One of the games that caught my eye for problem solving is B-cubed. There are multiple ways to reach a solution, so it would be great to break students into different groups and see what they come up with. Allowing them to create their own solutions then comparing how each group may have done it differently would be a fun way to explain how math is a lot of different paths to one solution. I would use this type of game as a station, each station group works to see how they can solve it. Then at the end of stations we could come together and compare the “paths” we took. If I have access in my classroom to enough laptops or ipads (or similar devices that can allow students to spread out around the room) I would do this as a whole group type instruction. Not all the games on this site would be useful for meeting common core standards, so I would be very careful about just letting students get on the site and picking their own game. It is nice because they remove all the excess portals that kids often times click on when playing games that takes them to other sites.