3 effective RTI math intervention activities & games for 1st grade

Once a week I try to work on a specific math skill with some sort of math game during our whole group math time.  But math games can also be super helpful during RTI math Tier 2 intervention groups. I have a core group of math games I have used over the last 10 years for RTI math intervention activities that are the best of the best.  They are tied to base 10 understanding and building flexibility with composing tens, which I believe is the basis for deep math understanding and success in the CGI classroom.

The awesome thing about doing math games in the first grade classroom is that once I can play a guided math game with some Tier 2 math intervention friends and play the same math game with additional support and scaffolds while everyone else is playing with partners. So, it’s an easy way to add in some RTI math intervention activities into my weekly math routine.

Let’s talk about 3 of my favorite math intervention activities and how I differentiate them to support struggling first grade kids during RTI Tier 2 math intervention.

Game of Compare

Game of Compare is essentially the old fashioned card game, War. Partners each lay down a card, decide which number is greater, and the one who laid down the higher card keeps both cards. This is what it looks like in partner practice for on grade level kiddos.

Here is my intervention group on that same game.  Same game, same rules, but I added the pop cubes to help give them a visual for comparing by connecting it to the idea of a graph.

Tens Go Fish

Tens Go Fish is another of my favorite math intervention activities.  This math game is just like go fish, but finding pairs that make 10.  Using the ten frame is a great scaffolding tool for my strugglers.  Such a powerful tool, but I do like to go back and forth with them from using the frame to doing it without or with fingers, just to give them a variety of visuals to experience.  That’s super important to me because I think it helps the transfer of their learning.

Total of 10

Total of 10 is another favorite math intervention activity. Set up for this math game with a board of 20 cards. The object is to clear the board by finding ways to make 10.  I also love this one because it can be played with partners or independently.  During tutoring this year, we used the ten frame to help visualize making 10…

This game gets really good when the board starts to clear….

….because kids have to use more than 2 numbers to make 10.  That’s when the 10 frame becomes really helpful!  My strugglers will always insist that we are done finding pairs of 10’s (especially if they just have them memorized….womp, womp!)  So, I use the 10 frame to help them visualize…

Then, we record how we made 10…with the same colors of course (!) and write our number sentence to match. Here’s a look at this game using the ten frames and the number cards that come with tens go fish.

This one is a favorite of my kids at all levels.  My highs love it because it really is a challenge (even for adults) to completely clear the board.  I’ve only had a handful of kiddos clear the board in 9 years  of teaching!!  Need an extension?  Play Total of 20 instead!

And these are just 3 of the 10 games included in my math games packet.  This packet includes scaffolds for your strugglers and extensions for your high kiddos too!