Hands-On Math Play: Why GET 9 Helps Kids Feel More Confident With Numbers

Now that school is back in session, students may begin to feel that familiar anxiety about their academic performance. For so many kids, math anxiety starts early. Long before algebra or fractions become a thing, they may already believe math is about speed, right answers, and not making mistakes. Watching my children, and nieces and nephews, I’ve seen how a page full of static drills can make numbers feel stiff and intimidating. It just looks boring! But when you put cards or dice in a child’s hands, something changes. Suddenly, math is not just something on a worksheet. It is something they can touch, move around, try out, and talk through.

That hands-on experience is where number sense starts to grow. Number sense is not just knowing facts; it is understanding how numbers work together. It is noticing that 8 needs 1 to make 9, that 6 and 3 are a comfortable pair, or that 2, 3, and 4 can team up to make the same total. Research on math manipulatives supports what many teachers and parents notice in real life: concrete materials help children engage, solve problems, and make abstract ideas feel more approachable. Card games also give students a playful way to build fluency instead of relying only on drill-and-practice routines. Now, all that math they are learning, actually has a purpose.

Cards and dice are simple, but they are powerful. A roll of the dice can turn into addition, subtraction, comparison, or a multi-step challenge. A few cards on the table can become a puzzle: What can I combine? What operation should I try? Is there another way to get the same answer? I love watching children discuss the options. Best of all, children can try different combinations, change their minds, and try again. That matters. When the answer is not locked onto a worksheet, a mistake feels less like failure and more like part of the game.

I value the practical aspect of GET 9. The goal is clear and friendly: use the numbers you have to make 9. At first, children may see easy addition combinations like 4 + 5, 6 + 3, or 2 + 7. Then the thinking begins to stretch. They might discover 12 – 3, 3 × 3, and by being able to combine cards to create new numbers--18 ÷ 2, or even a multi-step expression that lands on the same target such as 12-4+1. Without feeling like a formal lesson, they are practicing operations, looking for relationships, and building flexibility with numbers.

GET 9 also helps children practice cross sums in a natural way. When they look across cards, dice, rows, columns, or diagonals to find a total of 9, they are scanning, composing, and recomposing numbers. They start to see combinations before they have to count everything one by one. Over time, those combinations become familiar. Fluency grows because children have built the facts with their hands and eyes, not because they copied them again and again.

The emotional piece of working with numbers is just as important as the math piece. In a worksheet drill, a wrong answer often feels final. In a game, it sounds more like, “Oops, that didn’t make 9. What else could we try?” That small shift can be huge for anxious learners. Research on math anxiety shows that anxiety can get in the way of numerical processing and achievement. A hands-on game does not remove the challenge, but it gives children a safer, more inviting way to meet it.

Compared with static drills, GET 9 gives every child a place to begin. A child who feels confident can build more complex expressions. A child who feels unsure can start with simple pairs. Both are doing meaningful math. I also love the conversations that happen around the game: “Can you make 9 another way?” “Which move was easiest?” “How did you see that so quickly?” These questions help children understand that math is not only about being fast. It is about thinking, noticing, and explaining.

In the end, hands-on math play helps children see numbers as friendly and flexible. Cards and dice make their thinking visible. GET 9 turns practice with operations and cross sums into something joyful, social, and repeatable. Children still build accuracy, but they also build confidence. And for a child who has decided, “I’m just not a math person,” that kind of experience can open a door. Math becomes something they can play with, talk about, and begin to trust themselves with.

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References

Monte, J. (2021). An Exploration of Manipulatives in Math Education. Bridgewater State University Honors Program Theses and Projects.

Stott, D. (2014). “I’ve Got It!”: A card game for developing number sense and fluency. Learning and Teaching Mathematics.

Maldonado Moscoso, P. A., Anobile, G., Primi, C., & Arrighi, R. (2020). Math anxiety mediates the link between number sense and math achievements in high math anxiety young adults. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1095.