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• "online" means "interactive",
• "interactive" means "fun", and
• "fun" means "learning".

No matter what game a kid plays, if it's fun, they'll learn. They'll practice the skills the game requires. They'll commit to memory the information needed to win.

This being the case, surely it's best for a loving parent or teacher (such as yourself) to guide the games a student plays?

The whole purpose of this site is to make it easy for you to find "math games" for kids. Games where the skills and information needed are mathematical in nature.

This page collects together some of the best online math games I've discovered. Math games that combine graphics, sound and the power of the web to provide an interactive learning experience that your kids will call "plain old fun".

First, though, let me mention the interactive online math games found on this site itself. Please bear with me for a short while...

• This Angle Geometry Quiz tests your knowledge of a few facts relating to angles. Race against the clock as you prove your skills! Topics covered include the interior angles of triangles and quadrilaterals, angles near parallel lines, lines meeting at a point and others.
• Wishing that there were educational arcade games? Well, Mathteroids, the math asteroid game is the next best thing! This is an action-packed asteroid shooter game where you must sharpen your math skills to know which asteroids to shoot! Good for grades four and up.
• The six different Fractions Quizzes on this site are like an online version of Flashcard Stepping Stones. Choose your fractions topic, then choose which of 3 characters (a pegasus, a clownfish or a rocket) you will help! Then, answer a series of fractions questions until you reach the goal. The further they progress, the more challenging the questions become!
• MathGolf is another game where calculators might be handy. Players choose how far they can hit with their iron and wood clubs, then see what they scored for the course. As the tips for parents and teachers explains, the kids will get the most out of it if they plan their strategy first, away from the computer. You might let them use a calculator for the planning bit.
• Mastermind is a classic game of logical deduction. The first player selects a secret code. The second player tries to guess that code. After each guess, the first player gives clues about how well the second player did - how many digits (or pegs or marbles) in the code are correct, and how many are the right color but the wrong place. In this online version of mastermind, you can pit your wits against the task of finding the computer's secret code, or select your own secret code, and challenge the computer to guess it.
• In the Math Architect Online Game the goal is to design an apartment with the given area. The catch? Each room is a square, and you must have as few rooms as possible! This makes the game challenging enough to keep kids occupied, and deep enough to keep them learning as they play. There is also a high scores table showing the best players each month, year and for all time.
• Math Frozen Bubble is an online interactive bubble buster game that also helps kids practice their arithmetic. Good for grade 4 and up.
• Math Lines is like 'Zuma' with a math twist. A twisty row of colorful numbered marbles winds its way across the screen. If they get too far, that's the end of the game. Blast away with marbles of your own, and if you join two marbles that add to 10, they'll explode and give you more time to win. Can you make it to the next level?
• In Math Pathways you do a sequence of arithmetic sums, over and over on different numbers, and this shows you the way across a grid of numbered balls. In the hardest level, you aren't even told what sums you need to do, but have to figure this out from the numbers in the grid!
• This money counting memory game allows kids from the United States, UK, Australia, the EU and Singapore to practice counting money in a familiar game
• Want to play sudoku online? You can at this page. The page also has links to some printable sudoku for kids, and a sudoku solver. If you're a sudoku fan, make sure you visit this page and try out the puzzles it provides. Puzzles can be symmetric, and there are five difficulty levels.
• This Weekly Puzzle Google Gadget will show you a new math puzzle every week. If you don't want to visit the web page each week, you can put the gadget on your own web page, or on your personalized google start page.
• Sliding Block Puzzles are a very broad group of puzzles. This pages explores some simple ones, with questions about what makes a certain puzzle solvable. There's also a java applet allowing people to play with the puzzles mentione don the page.
• This Spirograph Applet is sure to be a hit with the artistically inclined. You can use it to make pretty patterns, and if you choose to "trust" the applet, you can even save them to disk or print them out. I've also made a page explaining the math that kids will pick up while using it.
• Squink is a Brain Puzzle where players have to find the squares in a pattern on a grid, and count how many squares surround each location. There are two ways to play - you can count the squares in the pattern shown, or you can find a pattern to produce the counts shown. You can also design patterns of squares and share them with your friends!

Now for some excellent or less well-known online interactive math games on other sites. The list below contains games that I think are really worth drawing attention to. It's not meant to be a complete list of the web's online math resources!

• The Lemonade Stand leads a child in a lemonade selling adventure! The player must make decisions about how much of each ingredient to buy, and what price to set for a cup of lemonade. Sales depend on the weather, of course. Kids will learn a whole gamut of skills, from basic money skills(arithmetic), through to economics concepts (price versus demand).
• Ghost Blasters is the second game I found that is really worth drawing your attention to! Blast away at "unfriendly" ghosts - how do you tell which ghosts are unfriendly? By the number they wear!
• Math 4 Children has quite a collection of flash-based math games. Explore and enjoy!
• Prongo has a nice two-player addition challenge. It's more fun than a plain old worksheet...

Well, that's all for now. I hope I can expand this list of interactive online math games soon!

Yours, Dr Mike...