Maths Starters The Students Love

Here are a few ideas of games I often start Maths lessons with to reinforce Maths skills.
Last year, I introduced these game when we were doing place value in September but they continually asked to play them throughout the year!

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Digit Bingo

I find it is a very useful way to recap on Maths vocabulary they have learned (factors/product etc.) and develop place value skills.

I usually hand out the whiteboards to the children and ask them to write down a four digit number (can increase or decrease the amount of digits depending on the class level). Sometimes we just do it in our copies if under time constraints. I then read out a list of clues and they mark off their numbers until someone has all of them marked off.

Examples of questions:

-If you have an even/odd number in the thousands mark it off.
-If you have the product of ___, in the tens mark it off.
-If you have a multiple of ___, in the hundreds mark it off.
-If you have the answer to 3x3......
-If you have 3 squared.....
-If you have the second square number....

(As I read out clues, I write down the possible answers on my grid to check their answer at the end.)

Alternative Ways to Play

-use it to develop a sense of tenths/hundredths/thousandths.
-if you have a split class, both classes can compete against each other 
-allow the winner to call out the clues for the rest of the class (which allows you to observe and see which clues/vocabulary the children are still finding challenging).

The Target Number

This is also a great game to revise vocabulary and to develop maths skills.

Again, I usually use the whiteboards for this activity but the copies also work perfectly.
I call out a four/five digit number for the children to take down and I give them 10 questions based on the number.

Examples of questions

-Make the largest/smallest four digit number from the digits
-is it odd or even?
-will it divide by 2/3/5? (They begin to know without even doing a calculation as the year progresses when they learn strategies such as any even number will divide by 2, if you add the digits and the answer is a multiple of 3, then 3 divides into it etc.)
-add all of the digits
-find a prime/composite digit
-find a square/triangular number
-list the digits that are a multiple of __
-Add 2000 to the number
-subtract 1200 from the number
-round it to the nearest 10/100/1000

Alternative Ways to Play

-allow the winner to call out the questions for the rest of the class (which allows you to observe and see which clues/vocabulary the children are still finding challenging).