Build Number Sense with Kindergarten Math Riddles

(This content was originally published on Primary Inspiration blog, and has been edited for publication here.)

Have you tried using math riddles as a teaching tool in your kindergarten classroom? Kindergarten math riddles are powerful for getting and keeping your students’ attention and for conveying content!

If you have any doubts about using riddles, try this the next time your class is unfocused, off task, or cranky (we all know that it can happen to the best of them…):  just say the word “riddle” and watch how quickly your students will be engaged with what you’re saying!

These free kindergarten riddle task cards will bring that kind of enthusiasm and learning to your classroom!

Here are a few ideas for using these task cards.

• Begin a math lesson by solving a riddle together.
• Connect riddles to displays and charts in your classroom to develop the habit of referring to them. These riddles have lots of clues that require your students to locate a number/s on the number line, along with using words like “more than”, “less than”, and “between”. Encourage your kinders to look at your number line and 100/120 chart to find the answer, or to prove that it’s correct.
• If you ever have a spare moment to fill (it does happen once in a while, right?), solving a riddle is a great way to keep the learning moving ahead!
• Riddles are an awesome way to squeeze in some spiraled review of math vocabulary.
• Riddles are a great way to build a foundation for comprehension skills like identifying key details, making inferences, and drawing conclusions.
• Incorporate kindergarten math riddles into your Morning Message. For example, write a riddle for the number 8 in your message on the eighth of September. Once you’ve practiced solving a few riddles, try using shared writing to create a math riddle together. Morning Meeting is the perfect time to do this.

What topics do these kindergarten math riddles address?

Each of these sample cards has a three clue riddle for a number. Guide your students to solve the clues in order, and they will build number sense and practice a wide variety of standards-based math skills and vocabulary, including…

• Sequence (next, before, between)
• Representations of numbers (ten frames, dominoes)
• Geometric shapes (shape names and characteristics)

Click here to get your set of kindergarten math riddle task cards!

Click here to sample math riddle task cards for first and second grade or third grade.

Happy Teaching!