Math Games for a Waldorf-Inspired Co-op: Counting, Clapping and Times Tables in a Ring

The math games that suit a Waldorf-inspired co-op are the ones a whole ring can play at once. Count round the circle, one number per child, as a bean bag passes hand to hand. Step and clap the times tables together. Clap them in pairs. Stand ten children in a ring and trace a times table between them with a ball of yarn. In each game, every age has its own part: the youngest keep the beat, and the older ones carry the harder numbers. Keep it to one short slot, and leave the daily practice at home.

For one child at home, Waldorf mental math and times tables in grade 2 cover the daily counting and the tables. Movement and bean bag games has bean bag games for a family. With a group, some of those games get much better. You have a real ring, real partners and enough voices to hear a pattern.

Why math games belong at co-op

Peter van Alphen wrote a math manual for Waldorf teachers in East Africa. In it, he says much of the math learning in grades 1 and 2 happens "in whole class work, group work and working in pairs." At home, you have one or two children. At co-op, you have the class.

That doesn't mean co-op should take over the math. The counting, sums and tables need a little every day, and each parent knows exactly where their child is. A co-op for grades 1 to 3 leaves it with the families for that reason. What the co-op can give is the part that needs a group, and it can echo what families are doing that month. If most of your second graders are on the 4s at home, play the 4s at co-op.

Mountain Laurel Waldorf School describes grade 1 using "bean bags games, clapping games and rhythmical walking" in circle and in extra math lessons. That's a good list to start from.

Rhythmic counting in a ring

Stand in a circle. The simplest game: one child says "1," the next says "2," and the count goes round the ring. Add a step on each number, then a clap, and the whole ring moves together.

Then change how you count. Van Alphen suggests counting "with an image," such as giants taking huge, slow steps or frogs taking one plop after the next. He also suggests changing the speed and the voice, from a whisper to a loud voice and back to soft again. In a group, this is where it comes alive. Twelve children whispering "7, 8, 9" and then booming "10" is a sound a child at home doesn't get to hear.

A few more ring games:

• Count backward round the ring. From 20 down to 0, and everyone crouches on 0.
• Echo counting. An adult counts 4 numbers in a rhythm, and the ring answers with the next 4 in the same rhythm.
• Half and half. Van Alphen's tip for a small room: half the group does the movement while the other half counts and claps. Then swap.

Times tables in movement

Once the children can count well, the ring can carry the tables. Van Alphen builds each new table on one the children already know. For the 4s, count in 2s and stamp hard on every second number. Then whisper the in-between numbers. Then leave them out. The grade 2 times tables guide sets out those steps.

In a group, try these:

• Loud on the table. Count round the ring from 1 to 30. Everyone whispers except on the 3s, which the whole ring says out loud and stamps.
• Step and clap. Van Alphen's pattern: step on the first number, stand still and clap on the second.
• Partner clapping. Stand in pairs, facing each other. Touch your legs and clap your own hands. Then clap right hands, then left, one number per beat. Van Alphen uses this for counting to 20, and Kelly Ehrman of Lavender's Blue suggests partner clapping with hand claps, shoulder touches and thigh slaps for the tables.
• A different movement for each table. Ehrman suggests giving each table its own set of movements, such as crossed arms, clapping, stomping and knee raises. A group can learn a set and keep it all year, so the 5s always feel like the 5s.

The yarn circle

This one needs a group. Ten children stand in a ring, each one a number from 0 to 9, with 0 at the top. Hand the yarn to 0. Count the 2s. For each answer, pass the yarn to the child holding its last digit: 2, 4, 6, 8, then back to 0. Everyone keeps hold of the yarn as it passes, and a shape appears in the middle of the ring. The 2s make a pentagon. The 3s make a ten-pointed star.

Van Alphen uses a ball of wool this way for simpler shapes, with children in groups of three making a triangle, each child holding one of the points. The times table version is the circle of 10 from the grade 2 times tables guide, made with children instead of pins. Don't say which shape is coming. Let the children look down at the yarn and see it. If you have fewer than ten children, give each child two numbers.

Bean bag games

Bean bags work well in a group because everyone has one or the bag goes round.

Van Alphen lists "counting while passing a bean bag in a circle, in groups, in pairs." In a ring, each child says the next number as the bag arrives in their hands. For the tables, only the child who catches the bag on a 5 or 10 says their number aloud, and everyone else stays silent.

Ehrman's catching game suits a group, too. An adult tosses a bean bag to one child and says "Five times nine is," and the child catches it and says "Forty-five." In a mixed group, the adult matches the question to the child. A first grader might get "What comes after 17?" and a third grader "Seven times six is." Nobody else needs to know who got the harder question.

The games in Waldorf co-op games include bean bag passing to a verse, which makes a calm end to a math game.

What are good homeschool co-op math games for elementary kids?

Most of the games above work from grade 1 to grade 3. Here's how to share one game across a wider range of ages.

Age	What they do in the same game
Under 7	Keep the beat, clap along, count to 10 in a rhyme
Grade 1	Count forward and back to 20, then 100
Grade 2	Say the multiples: the 2s, 3s, 4s, 5s and 10s
Grade 3	Answer times table questions, count backward in 3s or 4s
Grade 4	Lead the ring, keep the tally, play Fizz Buzz

For the youngest. Van Alphen's "Balancing Elephants" is a counting rhyme to 5 for a ring of small children. A string is stretched across the circle and one child at a time walks along it like an elephant, heel to toe, while the others count and sing. Counting rhymes where children take a part suit this age too.

For the oldest. Fizz Buzz is a counting game for children that practices division, played sitting in a circle. Players count in turn and say "fizz" for any number divisible by 3, "buzz" for 5 and "fizzbuzz" for both. In the usual rules, a player who hesitates or slips is out. In a co-op, have the whole ring start again from 1 instead, so no one sits out.

Outside. Ehrman suggests writing the numbers 1 to 24 on the sidewalk in chalk and having children run to the number called. Hop on one leg for odd numbers and two for even. A group can take turns calling, and the older children can call sums: "Run to 3 plus 4."

Keeping it kind

A group brings a risk that home doesn't: children can see who's fastest. A few habits help:

• Play games where the whole ring succeeds or starts again together.
• Don't ask the same child the hard question each week in front of the others.
• Let a child who's unsure keep the beat instead of saying a number.
• Stop while the children still want more.

A math circle to copy

This fits into circle time, or as its own short slot after snack.

1. Stand in a ring. Count to 20 and back, stepping, once as giants and once as frogs.
2. Count round the ring to 30, one number each, whispering all but the table of the month.
3. Partner clapping for that table, twice through.
4. Bean bag catch: one question per child, matched to their grade.
5. On the last week of the month: the yarn circle for that table.
6. End with bean bag passing to a verse.

Supplies:

• Bean bags, one per child if you can
• A ball of yarn
• Chalk for outdoor number lines
• A basket of counters, such as acorns, shells or stones

Getting started

Ask the families which table their children are working on at home this month. Choose one counting game and one table game, and play the same two for four weeks, so the children can settle into them.

Looking for families nearby to start a co-op with? The Waldorf Map lists co-ops and schools by area.