Book Review: Super Fun Math Games for Kids

Most of us probably don’t think of math as being playful. It feels like a set of rules that need to be followed every time. But math can also be about exploration, experimentation, and drawing huge shapes on the driveway.

Taking a playful approach to teaching math concepts is the philosophy behind Super Fun Math Games for Kids by Rebecca Rapoport and J.A. Yoder. The 32 projects in this book will have kids ages 6-10 drawing, coloring, building and sewing, all the while learning about things like mobius strips, tanagrams, Koch snowflakes, Eulerian circuits and more.

And don’t worry if you don’t know what any of those things are. The book does a good job explaining enough about concepts to make them understandable without overwhelming young learners (or their parents who haven’t taken a math class in a decade or more).

The book covers geometry, topology, coloring maps like a mathematician, stitching curves, fractals, tanagrams, toothpick puzzles and graph theory. Each chapter opens with a “think about it” question that deals with a concept related to the chapter, and then includes a few “lab” activities, which are meant to be worked through in order within the chapter as the skills and concepts build on each other.

The idea is that kids can do the experiments with the help of an older child or adult, and some include variations for older people to play along with. The book is meant to be worked in, with activities you can color on directly in the book or pull out to use or make copies of for classroom use (materials are also available online for teacher and parent use).

The book includes a wide range of activities, from building with toothpicks and gumdrops to coloring maps without having the same color touch, drawing shapes without picking up your pencil, building puzzles out of tanagrams and solving a classic map puzzle to name a few.

Kids should enjoy these activities and learning about different math concepts in a fun way that doesn’t involve equations on the whiteboard. Adults playing along might just learn something, too!

About the book: 128 pages, paperback. Published 2025 by New Shoe Press. Suggested retail price $16.99.

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Johnny Appleseed Day is sometimes celebrated on Sept. 26 because that is John Chapman’s birthday, but even if you’re just doing an apple unit study for fall it’s a great time to talk about Johnny Appleseed.

And that’s the place to start, that Johnny Appleseed was a real person named John Chapman who was born in 1774 in what was then the province of Massachusetts Bay. He traveled west when he turned 18 and despite the image of him randomly tossing apple seeds everywhere, he was really a deliberate planter of apple tree nurseries, which he left in the care of others and checked on every year or two.

Learn a little more of his story with these cute coloring pages (though not entirely historically accurate, they’re still cute) from Homeschool of 1. They also have a Johnny Appleseed themed word search printable.

This pin of a Scholastic News page doesn’t link to a website, but it gives you some basic information and a true and false quiz you can use with kids.

Crystal & Co. has a cute apple themed counting mini book you can print and use with your Johnny Appleseed unit. They also have some coloring pages with a bit of handwriting practice. Or practice cutting with the Johnny Appleseed themed worksheets from 3 Boys and a Dog.

Make a Johnny Appleseed puppet to help tell the story with this craft with a free printable template from Simple Everyday Mom. You’ll also find some cute printable worksheets there to learn his story and put it in the correct order.

Color, cut out and assemble this Johnny Appleseed drawing from Homeschool Preschool. They also have an apple seed counting activity you can use for practicing one to one correspondence.

Tiaras and Tantrums has a free printable apple unit that includes Johnny Appleseed facts and coloring pages, as well as how to say apple in different languages, tracing apple vocabulary, art project ideas, science experiments and more.

And if you need more apple themed activities to go with your Johnny Appleseed celebrations, check out my posts on apple crafts and apple learning activities.

Have you read?

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