The last full day of school was a fun day in room 314. I finally got out the playing cards and taught my students one of my favorite math games - multiplication war. For those of you that have never heard of this game it is a mathematical spinoff of slap jack.
How to play multiplication war (2 player game):
1) Use a full deck of cards (take out the jokers)
2) Split the deck in half
3) Players must keep cards face down and in one stack
4) Players place one card down in the middle of the table. First person to say the product of the cards wins the two cards (place them under original stack)
5) object of the game is to win all of your opponents cards.
To add a challenge I keep the face cards.
Jack = 11
Queen = 12
King = 13
although not a face card - Ace = 1
First person to say 117 (13x9) wins both cards.
These girls said 20 at the same time (5x4) so they did another round to break the tie.
The first person to say 96 wins ALL FOUR cards!
One of my favorite times to use this game is during ISATS which is during the month of March. Because it is also the time of March Madness I like to set up my own bracket and make a tournament called Multiplication Madness!
I usually have the Multiplication Madness written at the top of the poster
(I let a couple of students create this bracket)
This is one of the crazier brackets that has been created. Because this game can take a long time I give a time limit of 10 minutes for each round (winner is the person with the most cards). My brackets do not run as smoothly as the NCAA brackets (too many players) but it is still fun to watch the names fill up the brackets.
I first learned about this game during student teaching when we had some extra time to fill - Thanks Mrs. Pohl! This is also a great wrap up at the end of tutoring. Some of the students I tutored were in elementary school so I would take out the face cards or just concentrate on certain sets of numbers.
This game is a great activity to use throughout the year. Students are very engaged and love the friendly competition! I always forget about this activity but it would be a great way to refresh students' mental math skills throughout the year.
Do you have fun math games you use with a deck of cards?
How to play multiplication war (2 player game):
1) Use a full deck of cards (take out the jokers)
2) Split the deck in half
3) Players must keep cards face down and in one stack
4) Players place one card down in the middle of the table. First person to say the product of the cards wins the two cards (place them under original stack)
5) object of the game is to win all of your opponents cards.
To add a challenge I keep the face cards.
Jack = 11
Queen = 12
King = 13
although not a face card - Ace = 1
These girls said 20 at the same time (5x4) so they did another round to break the tie.
One of my favorite times to use this game is during ISATS which is during the month of March. Because it is also the time of March Madness I like to set up my own bracket and make a tournament called Multiplication Madness!
I usually have the Multiplication Madness written at the top of the poster
(I let a couple of students create this bracket)
I first learned about this game during student teaching when we had some extra time to fill - Thanks Mrs. Pohl! This is also a great wrap up at the end of tutoring. Some of the students I tutored were in elementary school so I would take out the face cards or just concentrate on certain sets of numbers.
This game is a great activity to use throughout the year. Students are very engaged and love the friendly competition! I always forget about this activity but it would be a great way to refresh students' mental math skills throughout the year.
Do you have fun math games you use with a deck of cards?
