The Best Math Board Games for Middle School
These are some of the best math board games for middle school and are educational games that should definitely be in regular rotation in your homeschool.
This list includes standard board games as well as card and dice games. There’s something for everyone.
Playing them will help your tween work on mental math skills, maths facts, spatial reasoning, and money management.
If you’ve never added board games to your math lesson plans, now’s the time to start. Your kids will be so excited to step outside of the textbook for a minute to play instead.
Math Board Games for Middle School
Math is one of those subjects that can be challenging to teach and boring to review. Unfortunately, consistent practice is the only way for kids to truly master math concepts.
As tweens continue moving ahead in their math curriculum, they still need to work on the stuff they learned previously while also building their mental math skills.
And this can often lead to frustration and sometimes tears. Math was a challenging subject for my oldest, and I tried everything to make it enjoyable for her. The last thing I wanted after she struggled with a lesson was to give her more worksheets. So I turned to fun math activities instead.
One of the best ways to give kids the practice they need is through board games. It lets them engage in math outside their textbook and use it in real life situations.
You can play most of the games listed here in 30 minutes or less, so it’s easy to add them onto a math lesson. Or skip a day of formal teaching and pull out some games instead.
Want to get everyone involved? Add these titles to your next family game night and watch what happens when mom and dad have to do math. It’s hilarious. My kids love beating us in educational games like these.
No matter how you decide to play, it’s important that you show tweens that math can be interesting, engaging, and exciting.
Choosing a Math Game
Wondering how to choose a math game for older kids? Here are a few things to ask when determining whether a game will work for you.
- Which math functions do you want to work on?
- Do you want a fast-paced game or one where players take their time to solve equations?
- Are you looking for a competitive game?
- Do you want a board game that includes different variations of play?
- Would you prefer to play as a group or for your tween to play individually?
- Will multiple ages be playing together?
- Do you want to focus mainly on mental math skills?
It seems quite complicated, but it really isn’t.
To find something that will fit your needs, it’s important to think about how and why you’ll use the game.
I would recommend getting a few different games that you can rotate between. Personally, we have several math games in our game closet.
What are some fun math games?
If you don’t know where to start, don’t worry. I’ve made it easy for you. I’ve assembled a bunch of different styles of math games that will appeal to middle schoolers.
These may contain affiliate links.
Prime Climb Board Game
The goal of this game is to get both of your pawns to the 101 spot before anyone else.
Players move around the board by using different math functions. Along the way they'll pick up cards and bump others off spots they want to occupy.
This is a great game for building mental math skills.
Number Rings
Number rings will help your kids work through math problems quickly in their heads.
During your turn, you'll roll the dice and then use addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to choose a number or numbers to cover with your colored ring.
The first one to wrap all 18 spots, wins.
Math Dice Chase
This is the math version of hot potato.
When it's your turn, you and the player across from you will simultaneously roll a set of 12-sided dice. Quickly multiply your numbers together, shout out the answer and if you're correct, pass the dice to the next person.
This is a great game for groups of 4 or more, but can easily be changed up for a smaller number. There are dozens of ways to adapt this to fit the math skills you want to work on with your kids.
Printable Mental Math Bingo Game
This is a fun way for middle schoolers to work on their mental math skills.
It's played like a standard Bingo game except instead of calling out numbers, kids must solve math problems to cover numbers.
Players roll 3 dice, then use those numbers to build a math equation that equals a number on their board.
It is printable, so it's easy to download and start playing.
Money Management Board Games
When you're looking for games for math, don't just focus on the main functions. Both of these games will help your tween with money management, an important part of math kids need to master.
Consumer math is a topic that isn't always covered in math curriculum, yet it's one that tweens often enjoy because it's practical.
Play Pay Day and Budget with your kids to help them build up their financial skills.

Absolute Zero Card Game
One of the things that makes this game unique is that you're trying to get to zero in order to win.
The deck includes both positive and negative numbers and players need to draw and discard until they get the sum of their hand to reach zero.
Before each round, the dealer chooses how many cards everyone will have in their hands, which definitely changes up the strategy and mental math portions of the game.

Swish
This game will help tweens build their spatial reasoning skills, which they'll need for geometry.
The dealer lays out 16 cards in four rows of four. On each card are colored dots and circles with holes on them.
Everyone races to grab cards that when stacked on top of each other will have the same colored dots sitting inside the open circles, completing them.
Tweens will love using their minds to flip and rotate the cards to create a completed stack.

Proof! Math Game
This a fun fast-paced mental math game that's great for older kids.
Nine cards are placed face-up on the table in a grid pattern and players race to find an equation among the cards.
Shout out your answer before anyone else and if it is correct, you get to keep the cards.
Numbers League
This is a cool, comic book centered math card game.
You're the leader of a group of superheroes who are trying to capture a group of villains that have come to Infinity City. You'll need to use the sum of your team's power (using addition, subtraction, and multiplication) to take down the bad guys.
When your cards match their weakness number, you catch the outlaw and put the card into your trophy pile. The person with the highest points at the end, wins.
They have an expansion pack too that includes more heroes and villains, but more importantly, players will need to use division and decimals to reach your target sums.
What a fun way to work on math skills!

SMATH
This crossword-style math game is not only a great one for math class, it's also fun for families to play together.
Players try to build math problems using their tiles. Each tile has a point value, so try to build complex equations that add up to the highest total points.

Kitki Three Sticks
If your kids loved playing with geoboards when they were younger, they're going to have a blast with this geometric pattern card game.
Everyone is randomly given a set number of sticks of different lengths that they'll try to use to make different geometric shapes. You can only play two sticks at a time, so everyone's trying to complete a shape using the same game board. Definitely challenging.
It's a great way for tweens to work on the concept of composite shapes - how basic shapes come together to form a new, more complex shape, a key skill in geometry.

Adsumudi Math Game
To start, everyone is given a colorful card that has five numbers surrounding one in the middle. This is that card's answer. The goal get to the answer, using different math functions. If you succeed, you get to keep the card.
One thing that I like about this mental math game is that you choose how challenging to make it for your kids. For the medium mode, players will need to use three of the five numbers on the card to reach the answer. If your kids need more of a challenge, they can play with all five numbers on the card.
In addition, each card has a difficulty ranking, from one to three stars. Meaning the math gets more challenging the more stars you see.
On top of all that, there are multiple modes of play, so it's easy to keep kids engaged.

Sumoku
To begin a round, roll the die. Then, players lay down as many of their tiles as possible, in a crossword-style format, in multiples of the number that was rolled.
Every time you play, it's a bit different based on the tile you choose and the number rolled. And if you're looking for even more variety, there are five different game variations included which will help to keep it exciting for tweens.

Race to Infinity Math Board Game
Players roll the two 12-sized dice and use math functions to move left or right around the board.
Along their journey, they'll collect tokens. Once they reach 200 credits, they unlock the paths in the middle, leading to infinity. The first person to reach the center with exact numbers, wins.
This is another game that's a fun way to sharpen mental math skills.

Fraction Dominoes
Played like standard dominoes, you'll try to get rid of your tiles by matching fractions, using a variety of formats.

Algebra Bingo
The classic game with a math twist. Instead of calling out a letter and number, you'll read off an algebraic equation. If players have the answer on their boards, they get to cover it up.
As you can see, there are plenty of exciting games you can use with your tweens to help them build their math skills. It’s a great way to show kids just how fun math can be.

More Math Resources
Keep math fun with these interactive ideas.
- Fun Games with Dice
- Math Projects for Middle School
- 50+ Math Games for Tweens
- Order of Operations Math Task Cards
- Real Life Math Projects for Middle School
Educational Games
Now that you’ve seen how easy it is to add some games to your math lessons, here are more ideas for using games in your homeschool.
- Work on geography skills with your tween with these fun geography games.
- Build your middle schooler’s vocabulary with some word games.