Do you need some fun ways to teach doubles to your students?
Let’s discuss some hands-on activities and creative ideas to get your students engaged and fluent when doubling numbers.
Kids learn best when engaged in learning that suits their learning styles, is age appropriate and helps them move from the concrete to the abstract.
We will share lesson ideas and activities to help you plan doubling lessons that do all these things – without hours of planning by you, the busy teacher.
Teacher note: We are big believers in not isolating concepts when teaching them. When it comes to doubling, halving is the secondary skill we need to teach. You can adapt and tweak all the ideas below to teach students how to halve numbers as well.
7 Fun Ways to Teach Doubles
1. Dice games
Dice are such handy manipulatives to teach doubles. Not only do they give kids the opportunity to work with hands-on materials, but by using 6-sided, 10-sided or 12-sided dice, you can provide a range of complexity depending on each student’s ability.
Dice games are a great place to start, especially if using 6-sided dice. Students can use the dots on the dice to subtise, count on or count the entire collection until they are ready to build their double fluency.
Teacher tip: Challenge students by asking them to create a graph with their results if you use a game board such as this.
2. Card Games
Every classroom seems always to have sets of playing cards lying around, which are ideal for addition fluency (plus, we are all about using what we already have access to).
Remove the picture cards and use the playing cards to randomly select a number and ask students to double it. This is a fun way to teach doubles and start building addition fluency with numbers 1 through 10.
We recommend students play this game in mixed-ability pairs to support each other. Learners who need more support can be encouraged to count the symbols of the playing cards to help them double.
We love using templates like this, especially when running maths groups in the classroom, to keep the activity scaffolded and our little learners on task.
3. Board Games
Board games are perfect for students to become more confident and fluent when doubling numbers.
Games that can be played in pairs are so much fun for kids. Plus working with peers has so many advantages. It is a great way to:
- Consolidate understanding
- Engage in mathematical language
- Encourage peer mentoring and
- Develop addition fluency at the same time.
It is always important that we mix up how students work with each other and what type of activities they are engaged in so all learning styles are being catered for. Our classrooms’ social and interpersonal learners will love working with a partner while playing a board game. 
“My students have so much fun when using this resource!” Beth
4. Number Puzzles
These puzzles aim to help students see the link between doubling and addition. They are perfect for use as a maths group station or even as a more ‘hands-on’ assessment style.
Puzzles such as these will have your visual and kinesthetic learners super engaged and ready to make mathematical connections!
5. Interactive Notebook Activity
Ready for your students to move from the concrete to the abstract when doubling numbers? This activity is for you.
Students create an interactive resource where they cut out numbers, double them and write the answers under the petals. This activity can lead to a fun game where students test each other on their double facts.
The students in our classrooms have always enjoyed this fun way to teach doubles and we bet yours will too!
6. Speedy Numbers Booklet
Our speedy number activities are the perfect way to work on addition fluency, as well as track progress for both your students and you as the teacher.
We also use our speedy number booklets for lesson warm-ups, reviews, homework or as an activity in Math groups.
Or you could have students complete them during morning work.
Our speedy number activity will develop students’ number fluency in recalling:
- Double facts up to 20
- Double facts up to 40
- Double facts plus 1
The best news about these speedy number booklets is you can download our doubling version for free here.
“A good resource for practising automaticity with basic number facts. Kids love the challenge.” Joanne
7. Chatterbox Games
Kids get totally hooked on creating chatterboxes, so let’s take advantage of it! Ask students to create their own or use premade chatterboxes and watch them play with them endlessly.
The best part is they don’t even notice that they are building their doubling fluency. We also love to send chatterboxes home as a fun way to continue learning.
“These were such a hit. I couldn’t print them off fast enough for my students!” Shari
BONUS Assessment idea: Addition flower to showcase learning
Assessment tasks can also be engaging and interactive!
This activity is a great assessment because students don’t even realise they are being assessed.
The final piece of work is a flower representation of a variety of strategies, resulting in a beautiful maths display for your classroom as a bonus.
The next step – Fun Ways to Teach Near Doubles
We can’t dedicate a blog post to doubles without touching on ‘near doubles’ because that is not only the next step for our students to apply their knowledge but it is a way you can differentiate for those learners that are ready.
You can tweak any of the ideas above to suit learning about near doubles. Alternatively, we have a pack of games ready for you to print and go! Find them here.
So that is a wrap, 7 fun ways to teach doubles!
We love sharing fun ideas to help you create engaging, hands-on learning experiences in your classroom. If you use any of these ideas in your classroom, we would love to hear about it!
Time poor? Grab our ready-to-print Doubling and Halving games and activities here.
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