Traditionally, mathematics tops the list of school subjects students generally find most difficult to deal with. Interestingly enough, there are few who actually love to do math. Though personal interest might be the force behind loving a particular subject, we can be made to enjoy math from an early age using online engaging math games.

So today we are going to take a look at some of the many sites offering fun-filled math activities. Let’s start with Carrotsticks.com — a site specifically designed for the very young ones for whom, usually, there are fewer options available to explore the internet. The site offers a character to represent the player which can be customised (by changing clothes and other props).

Once the game starts, arithmetic puzzles are displayed on the screen asking the player to enter the correct answer. For each correct answer, a carrot is rewarded out of a total of 250, after which a math achievement certificate is awarded. Pressing the Easier/Harder button at the left results in adjusting the difficulty level of game. This site demonstrates the power of practice that’s required from a very basic level, though it has a limitation of practice option of addition only.

For a bit older kids, check out Kidopo.com which has a complete section of math games. It brings operations, as simple as addition, to life with games such as Skater Math, where a selected character skates on a horizontal scrolling platform while a question appears at the bottom. It’s not enough to be simply fast here to solve the problem but it requires synchronisation with obstacles such as drums, cracks, hurdles and stones, faced by the skater as clicking a correct answer makes the skater jump and avoid the obstacle while clicking a wrong answer makes it slip off the skate and fall on the road. The challenge of keeping the character going smoothly while practicing quick math covering all basic operations is really a fun and engaging activity.

A relatively simple yet entertaining game at Kidopo is Lemonade Larry. Different customers arrive at this lemonade stall and for every visit, there’s a different price and quantity of lemonade which needs to be multiplied to quote exact price to the customers. Incorrect calculation means selling the required cups of lemonade over or under-priced which is highlighted as red. A similarly simple yet graphically rich addition practice site for very young kids is Alien Addition where selecting a correct answer from the available cross-hairs results in running alien silhouettes revealing their original colours and running away towards the bottom of the screen.

Then there’s ‘math shooter’ combining multiple-choice with mouse movement as it asks the player to shoot at one of the floating numbers which should be the answer of a given question. The quicker the shot, greater the time bonus and overall score in this game.

Another game-driven math tutorial site is Hoodamath.com covering over 30 arithmetic games, including topics such ratios, proportions, integers, fractions and factors. Expect to find considerable creativity here along-with multilayer games such as, ‘drag race division’ game where players compete against each other online.

Each player has a car assigned with a customer driver alias. All the cars are lined up at the starting line and start the race with same speed while division questions are displayed at the top with multiple choice answers. Clicking the correct answer first boosts the speed of player’s car thus there’s an incentive to answer correctly and quickly both. Players who reach the finish line first win the race.

Then there’s a multiplication game titled Tug Team Tractor that takes multilayer math gaming to the next level by introducing the concept of teams. Users can join in a team or create their own to play this game. Each player of the team is represented by a tractor and up to eight members can form a team with same number of players in the opposing team. Tractors of both the teams are lined up horizontally against each other with a tug in the middle that is pulled by tractors. The task is to correctly answer multiple choice answers fast enough to power the tractor to pull the tug (and thus the entire opposing team) towards itself.

The first team to pull the other team to the middle point wins the contest. On a different note, there are games like Dress-Up which require purchasing cloths for a character utilising the exact amount of cash given to the player.

Apart from math games, Hoodmath also have some memory games like shopping cart adventure, and other categories include geometry and logic games that are also worth looking at.

Making use of the sites above, teaching maths at school at elementary level or self learning can be easy and fun both at the same time.