So OK, you might have a road trip ahead of you, or some down time to kill in the hotel while the weather’s bad. As parents, especially the outdoor loving adventurous kind, we hate to plop our kids down in front of Nickelodeon or PBS Kids (which I prefer), or the TV in order to play the typical kid games, like dress up games, cooking games or other funny games for hours.

And this is what they will happily to if you let them. But now you can feel especially less guilty with this line up of cool math games and other games and activities you can let the kids do. If you need a car game, and you have your mobile wifi, there’s nothing wrong with an hour or two playing learning games.

1) Addington Kids: has some really cool math games on their site. Save the space aliens from heading into the vortex by clicking on the right ones with the right numbers on their heads. When you get them all in the right combination and place them on the little teleporter table (I think that’s what it is) hit the button and voila, you’ve saved them. Watch though they get grumpy so you need to give them some attention by clicking on them.

2) Math Man: as you will see looks eerily familiar to our our little whacka whacka friend the Pac Man. Only now it has a math twist. But don’t let the ghosts get you before you can eat a question.

3) Super Math Multiplication Game: in typical math nerd form, this super cute game has a very bland title, but don’t let that fool you. Let the laser shooting cow help your child get a grasp on his multiplication table. There are several levels of difficulty but try them all. These kids games are free!

4) Cool Math Games: The whole site is about cool math. Prealgebra, algebra, geometry art and more.

5) Hooda Math You must escape the clock tower. You’ve somehow gotten in and now you have to figure out how to get out.  And the great clock is broken. You need to help fix it.