Rainbow Fact Families Board Game

I interviewed Dr Elida Laski recently and she was talking about the importance of practicing fact families because of their value to future math success. So I thought I should create a game that would give kids tons of practice. Since today’s focus is rainbows (see all the links at the bottom) it became a rainbow fact families board game!

Practice finding fact families using this FREE rainbow game board!

This game can be differentiated really easily. In fact children can be playing together but doing completely different math tasks! It’s a winner all round!

What are fact families?

These are numbers that can be grouped together as partners. For eg 3, 7 and 10

3+7=10
7+3=10
10-7=3
10-3=7

Math confidence

It really helps children to be confident with math if they come to recognise these families quickly and automatically. As they face more challenging problems children need to use more brain power, so being able to recall facts frees up the brain so it can tackle more.

But lots of kids struggle with memorisation so we need to offer them lots of fun ways to practice facts so they’re learning at a pace that’s comfortable and without making them feel pressured.

How to use

DOWNLOAD THE PRINTABLE HERE!
Print off the colour or black and version pages. You can use my dice or just use your own.
Cut out the number rainbows and store in a ziploc bag
Construct a die if you’re using mine.
Each child will need a counter or manipulative of some kind.

How to play rainbow fact families

Children choose 1 of the rainbow numbers and places it in the space at the bottom of the game board.
This will be the fact family they will be using for the game.
Place their counters on start.
The first player rolls a die and moves that number of spaces.
They read the number on that space then decide how many more they need to reach the fact family number. For eg, if the fact family number is 10 and they land on a 3, the answer is 7.
Children take it in turns to work their way around the rainbow game board, following the directions on the arrows till they land on ‘you did it!’

Differentiate easily to practice addition, subtraction, doubling and more with these FREE rainbow fact families board games.

Differentiation

Look at all the different ways your kids can use this board game to practice fact families, addition, subtraction, counting on, number bonds, doubling and even multiplication if you’ve got older ones.

Easier: count on with fingers to reach the fact family number.
Easier still: just name the number they land on, or show the number using manipulatives.
Harder: use mental math only
Subtraction: ask children to take away the number from the fact family number
Addition: ask children to add the number to the fact family number
Doubles: don’t use a fact family number, but ask the kids to double the number they land on (or just add 1 or 2)
Multiplication: for older children, ask them to multiply by 3 or 4 or 5 or 10. Or use a calculator and multiply by the fact family number.

I hope you can get lots of use out of this very flexible board game!