Math Game: War with Special Decks

The all-time most-visited page on this site is my post about Math War: The Game That Is Worth 1,000 Worksheets. It’s easy to adapt to almost any math topic, simple to learn, and quick to play. My homeschool co-op students love it.

But Math War isn’t just for elementary kids. Several teachers have shared special card decks to help middle and high school students practice math by playing games.

Take a look at the links below for games from prealgebra to high school trig. And try the Math War Trumps variation at the end of the post to boost your children’s strategic-thinking potential.

Have fun playing math with your kids!

Playing with Prealgebra

• Spatial Learning’s Rotation War Game
  Rotation War Cards

• Chris’s My Closest Neighbor
  (Fraction War with target numbers. Target cards are a Powerpoint file at the original post.)

• Sarah Carter’s War Activity for Practicing Absolute Value, Opposite, Reciprocal, and Opposite Reciprocal
  Integer/Fraction War Cards

• Carla Dawson’s Fraction Talks War
  How to Get the Fraction Talks War Cards
  Fraction Talks Match-It Game
  Comparing and Ordering Fraction Talk Cards

War Decks for Algebra & Geometry

• John Golden’s Area Battle
  Area Battle Template

• Sarah Carter’s Evaluating Functions War
  Functions War Cards

• Jennifer Williams’s Slopes and Intercepts War
  Slopes and Intercepts War Cards

• John Golden’s Linear War
  Linear War Cards Template

• Julie Morgan’s Simultaneous Equations War
  Simultaneous Equations War Cards

War Decks for Algebra 2 & Trigonometry

• Sarah Carter’s Radians and Degrees War blog
  about MrsContesStuff’s Radians and Degrees War Cards

• Sam Shah’s Trig War
  Trig War Cards

• Jonathan Claydon’s Inverse Trig War
  Inverse Trig Cards

• Jimmy Pai’s Log and Trig War
  Log and Trig War Cards

Math War Trumps

The biggest problem with Math War is that it’s really just a worksheet in disguise. Children enjoy it more than a worksheet because of the social interaction, but there’s no choice or strategy to the game.

But you can bring strategic thinking into your number practice by playing Math War Trumps:

• Players draw three cards from their deck and look at them.

• The player whose turn it is calls the trump: High or Low, for which answer takes the trick. Or “closest to zero,” or any other winning value that makes sense with your card deck.

• Then all players choose a card to reveal, and the winner collects the other cards as prisoners.

• In case of a tie, the winners choose one of their remaining cards for a head-to-head competition (with the same trump).

Then all players draw enough cards to replenish their hand for the next turn.

Your Turn

Do you have a favorite way to play math with your kids? Please share in the comments below!