Math Game: Chopsticks

Math Concepts: counting up to five, thinking ahead.
Players: two or more.
Equipment: none.

How to Play

Each player starts with both hands as fists, palm down, pointer fingers extended to show one point for each hand. On your turn, use one of your fingers to tap one hand:

  • If you tap an opponent’s hand, that person must extend as many extra fingers on that hand (in addition to the points already there) as you have showing on the hand that tapped. Your own fingers don’t change.
  • If you force your opponent to extend all the fingers and thumb on one hand, that makes a “dead hand” that must be put behind the player’s back, out of the game.
  • If you tap your own hand, you can “split” fingers from one hand to the other. For instance, if you have three points on one hand and only one on the other, you may tap hands to rearrange them, putting out two fingers on each hand. Splits do not have to end up even, but each hand must end up with at least one point (and less than five, of course).
  • You may even revive a dead hand if you have enough fingers on your other hand to split. A dead hand has lost all its points, so it starts at zero. When you tap it, you can share out the points from your other hand as you wish.

The last player with a live hand wins the game.

When a two-points hand taps a one-point hand, that player must put out two more fingers.
When a two-points hand taps a one-point hand, that player must put out two more fingers.

Continue reading Math Game: Chopsticks

Math Teachers at Play #79: Puzzles and Games

79

[Feature photo above by Jimmie, and “79” image (right) by Steve Bowbrick via flickr (CC BY 2.0).]

Do you enjoy math? I hope so! If not, browsing this post just may change your mind.

Welcome to the 79th edition of the Math Teachers At Play (MTaP) math education blog carnival — a smorgasbord of links to bloggers all around the internet who have great ideas for learning, teaching, and playing around with math from preschool to pre-college.

Let the mathematical fun begin!

By tradition, we start the carnival with a puzzle, game, or trivia tidbits. If you would like to jump straight to our featured blog posts, click here to see the Table of Contents.

Since I’ve been spending all my free time working on my upcoming Math You Can Play book series, I’m in the mood for games. So I found a few games featuring prime and nonprime numbers [which category is #79 — do you know?], and I’ll sprinkle some of my best-loved math game books throughout the carnival.

Continue reading Math Teachers at Play #79: Puzzles and Games

Horseshoes: A Place Value Game

[Feature photo above by Johnmack161 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.5).]

I first saw place value games on the old PBS Square One TV show (video below). Many teachers have posted versions of the game online, but Snugglenumber by Anna Weltman is by far the cutest variation. Anna kindly gave me permission to use the game in my upcoming Math You Can Play book series, and I added the following variation:

Horseshoes

snugglenumber

Math Concepts: place value, strategic thinking.
Players: two or more.
Equipment: one deck of playing cards, or a double deck for more than three players.

Separate out the cards numbered ace (one) through nine, plus cards to represent the digit zero. We use the queens (Q is round enough for pretend), but you could also use the tens and just count them as zero.

Shuffle well and deal eleven cards to each player. Arrange your cards in the snugglenumber pattern shown here, one card per blank line, to form numbers that come as close to each target number as you can get it.

Continue reading Horseshoes: A Place Value Game

Fraction Game: My Closest Neighbor

[Feature photo above by Jim Larrison, and antique playing cards below by Marcee Duggar, via Flickr (CC BY 2.0).]

I missed out on the adventures at Twitter Math Camp, but I’m having a great time working through the blog posts about it. I prefer it this way — slow reading is more my speed. Chris at A Sea of Math posted a wonderful game based on one of the TMC workshops. Here is my variation.

Math concepts: comparing fractions, equivalent fractions, benchmark numbers, strategic thinking.

Players: two to four.

Equipment: two players need one deck of playing cards, three or four players need a double deck.

Continue reading Fraction Game: My Closest Neighbor

Math Teachers at Play #70

800px-Brauchtum_gesteck_70_1[Feature photo above by David Reimann via Bridges 2013 Gallery. Number 70 (right) from Wikimedia Commons (CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0).]

Do you enjoy math? I hope so! If not, browsing this post just may change your mind.

Welcome to the 70th edition of the Math Teachers At Play math education blog carnival — a smorgasbord of 42+ links to bloggers all around the internet who have great ideas for learning, teaching, and playing around with math from preschool to pre-college. Let the mathematical fun begin!

By tradition, we start the carnival with a puzzle in honor of our 70th edition. But if you would like to jump straight to our featured blog posts, click here to see the Table of Contents.

Click here to continue reading.

Multiplication Models Card Game

multfrac-300Update: An expanded version of this post is featured in my book Multiplication & Fractions: Math Games for Tough Topics, available now at your favorite online book dealer.

Homeschooling parents know that one of the biggest challenges for any middle-elementary math student is to master the multiplication facts. It can seem like an unending task to memorize so many facts and be able to pull them out of mental storage in any order on demand.

Too often, we are tempted to stress the rote aspect of such memory work, which makes our children lose their focus on what multiplication really means. Before practicing the times table facts, make sure your student gets plenty of practice recognizing and using the common models for multiplication.

To help your children see what multiplication looks like in real life, explore the multitude of Multiplication Models collected at the Natural Math website. Or sign up for their Multiplication Explorers Online Course.

You may want to pick up this poster and use it for ideas as you play the Tell Me a (Math) Story game. Word problems are important for children learning any new topic in math, because they give children a mental “hook” on which to hang the abstract number concepts.

And for extra practice, you can play my free card game…

Click here to continue reading.

Maze Game: Land or Water?

This was a fun activity from Moebius Noodles for our PK-1st grade Homeschool Math in the Park group. The children take turns making a maze and setting a dinosaur inside. Then the other dinosaurs (parents or siblings) try to guess whether their friend is on the land or in the water.

Draw the maze

Player #1

(1) First, draw a big circle on the white board. This is your lake.

(2) With a finger or a bit of cloth, erase a small section of the circle to create the opening for your maze.

(3) Starting at one edge of the opening, draw a random squiggle inside the circle. Make your squiggle end at the other edge of the opening.

Looks like Land

(4) Set your dinosaur anywhere inside the maze.

Player #2

(1) Now it’s your turn to guess. Is the dinosaur standing on the land? Is it swimming in the water?

(2) How will you figure out if you guessed right?

(3) Check by jumping across the lines of the maze. Each jump takes you across a boundary: Splash! (Into the water.) Thump! (Back on the land.) Splash! Thump! … Until you reach the dinosaur inside.

(4) Or go to the maze entrance and walk your dinosaur along the path. Can you find your way?

land or water

 
* * *

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Which I am going to say right now. Thank you!

“Maze Game: Land or Water?” copyright © 2013 by Denise Gaskins. All photos copyright © Denise Gaskins.

Math Teachers at Play #66

[Feature photo above by Franz & P via flickr. Route 66 sign by Sam Howzit via flickr. (CC BY 2.0)]
Route 66 Sign

Welcome to the Math Teachers At Play blog carnival — which is not just for math teachers! If you like to learn new things and play around with ideas, you are sure to find something of interest.

By tradition, we start the carnival with a couple of puzzles in honor of our 66th edition.

Let the mathematical fun begin!

Puzzle 1

how crazy 66

Our first puzzle is based on one of my favorite playsheets from the Miquon Math workbook series. Fill each shape with an expression that equals the target number. Can you make some cool, creative math?

Click the image to download the pdf playsheet set: one page has the target number 66, and a second page is blank so you can set your own target number.

Continue reading Math Teachers at Play #66

Math Teachers at Play #62: A Carnival with Books

by Robert Webb

Do you enjoy math? I hope so! If not, browsing this post just may change your mind. Welcome to the Math Teachers At Play blog carnival — a smorgasbord of ideas for learning, teaching, and playing around with math from preschool to pre-college.

Let the mathematical fun begin!

POLYHEDRON PUZZLE

By tradition, we start the carnival with a puzzle in honor of our 62nd edition:

An Archimedean solid is a polyhedron made of two or more types of regular polygons meeting in identical vertices. A rhombicosidodecahedron (see image above) has 62 sides: triangles, squares, and pentagons.

  • How many of each shape does it take to make a rhombicosidodecahedron?
Click for full-size template.
Click for template.

My math club students had fun with a Polyhedra Construction Kit. Here’s how to make your own:

  1. Collect a bunch of empty cereal boxes. Cut the boxes open to make big sheets of cardboard.
  2. Print out the template page (→) and laminate. Cut out each polygon shape, being sure to include the tabs on the sides.
  3. Turn your cardboard brown-side-up and trace around the templates, making several copies of each polygon. I recommend 20 each of the pentagon and hexagon, 40 each of the triangle and square.
  4. Draw the dark outline of each polygon with a ballpoint pen, pressing hard to score the cardboard so the tabs will bend easily.
  5. Cut out the shapes, being careful around the tabs.
  6. Use small rubber bands to connect the tabs. Each rubber band will hold two tabs together, forming one edge of a polyhedron.

So, for instance, it takes six squares and twelve rubber bands to make a cube. How many different polyhedra (plural of polyhedron) will you make?

  • Can you build a rhombicosidodecahedron?

And now, on to the main attraction: the 62 blog posts. Many of the following articles were submitted by their authors; others were drawn from the immense backlog in my blog reader. If you’d like to skip directly to your area of interest, here’s a quick Table of Contents:

Continue reading Math Teachers at Play #62: A Carnival with Books

Math Teachers at Play #58: Crazy, Funny Math

No 58 - gold on blue[Feature photo (above) by Alex Kehr. Photo (right) by kirstyhall via flickr.]

Welcome to the Math Teachers At Play blog carnival — a smorgasbord of ideas for learning, teaching, and playing around with math from preschool to pre-college. If you like to learn new things and play around with ideas, you are sure to find something of interest.

Let the mathematical fun begin…

PUZZLE 1

By tradition, we start the carnival with a pair of puzzles in honor of our 58th edition. Click to download the pdf:

How CRAZY Can You Make It

Continue reading Math Teachers at Play #58: Crazy, Funny Math