Maths Fluency Activities

Hello everyone, Stephanie from Fishing for Education here with some fun ways to help with your students fluency in maths (addition, subtraction, multiplication, & division).


At my school we are asked to have our students be tested on their maths fluency each term.  They focus on all four operations each term, and my students definitely don't like the boring task of answer facts on a worksheet.  I do have them practise on a worksheet from time to time, but I implement more fluency games to continue the practise.

Whenever my students are finished early with work they can work on maths games, and I have a wide variety for the students to choose from.  Here are some that my students enjoy and find easy to follow!

Flashcards & Whiteboards

One of the games we do is practise our multiplication facts using flashcards, but we use them as a game! Flip a card and answer.  If you get it correct you keep it, if incorrect you put it back.  Most cards wins! 

My students took it a step further and made sure to build arrays based on the flashcard!  They're definitely getting better at multiplication with the daily practise.

Fraction War

We also make sure we recognise and understand fractions regularly because it is a difficult concept to grasp.  I've made these cards and the students play Fraction War!  They each flip a card and the player that has the greater fraction keeps the cards.  If you come across equivalent fractions, you go another round until there's a winner.  (Winner gets the whole bundle!)   

Fluency Dice

This is probably the best $20 I've spent!  We've used these for addition, subtraction, multiplication and adding/multiplying multiple numbers!  My students came up with a more active game where they make a small tower on the floor near a wall and toss a dice to knock some down.  They then add all the dice that fell to see who finds the sum first.  I love how they come up with their own games.

Playing Cards

Playing cards are the easiest, and affordable, way to incorporate regular games in math.  I had an old maths curriculum that had a game called TOP IT!  We did this game with addition, subtraction and multiplication.  

1. Player 1 flips two cards and adds, subtracts or multiplies them.
2. Player 2 picks the next two cards and does the same.
3. Player with the higher answer keeps the cards.
4. Player with the most cards at the end wins!
5. If you get the same answer, you do another round.

Typical games can easily be made into maths fluency games!  What games do you play in your class?

Some great resources on TPT: