Games

Every instructor should know how to play the games listed below. Many of them appear in Warm Ups.

For more information about when it is appropriate to play games, see Game Policy.

Mathnasium Playing Card Games

Up to 10s Go Fish

Multiplication War with Cards

Multiplication Heads Up

Take a Chance on Me (or Probability High/Low)

Prime Number Shuffle

Go Fish-Tac-Toe

Mathnasium Miscellaneous Games & Activities

Addition/Multiplication War with Dominoes

Dice Activities

7 8 9

99 or Bust

Multiplication 4 in a Row

Mathnasium Playing Card Games

Up to 10s Go Fish

Played like regular Go Fish, but instead of making pairs of the same number, the goal is to make pairs that make 10. Depending on the student's level of numerical fluency, you can either discard 11s and 12s, or talk about what number you could take away from them to make 10. Thus, 8 and 2 or 12 and 2 would be acceptable pairs.

Deal 5 cards to each player. If players already have pairs that make 10, they should lay them down. The first player asks the second player for a card they need to make 10. If the second player has it, they must hand it over; if not, they tell the first player to "Go Fish" and the first player draws a card from the draw pile. It is then the second player's turn to ask for a card. Whoever gets four pairs first wins!

Multiplication War with Cards

Each player is dealt half of a Mathnasium deck of cards and simultaneously will take two cards off the top of their pile to be placed face up on the table. If an instructor is playing, the student should be prompted to recite both facts, and the player with the largest product gets to keep all the cards. This game can be played with a time limit, or until the cards run out (if time allows).

To focus on a single family of multiplication facts, pull two cards from the deck associated with the factor to be practiced (e.g. if a student is practicing 6 facts, pull two 6s from the deck). Lay one face-up in front of each player. Players will then pull one card from the top of their draw pile and lay it next to the factor being practiced and find the product. For cumulative practice, players could have cards arranged in a pile associated with the “facts” they have acquired. For example, if a student has recently completed their 3s facts, an instructor could create a split pile of only 0s, 1s, 2s, 10s, 5s, and 3s with the other pile being cards of any type, drawing a card from each pile to form the pair. This would force one of each pair being played to correlate with a fact they have already learned.

Potential variations could include having students “sum up” their cards to determine a winner or turning three cards face-up for enrichment students.

Multiplication Heads Up

This activity requires either two students or a student and an instructor and a deck of Mathnasium playing cards. A third person can also be involved to assist with the game. Remove all 0 cards from the deck.

The players will (at the same time) place a card on their forehead, facing out, without looking at the card. The third person will announce the product of the two numbers with the first person to correctly identify the card against their own forehead being the winner. Play as many rounds as time allows for.

Alternatively, if a third person is not available, the two players can alternate stating products. On each turn, both players draw a card. One player places their card on their forehead, while the other lays their card face up on the table, and states the product of the two cards. The player with the card against their forehead must identify what number is on it. There is no scoring in this version; play as many rounds as time allows for.

To focus on a single family of multiplication facts, place a card associated with the facts to be practiced on the table. Acting as a single player, the student could then place a card on their forehead with the instructor announcing the product of the student’s card and the chosen card on the table. The student would then have to identify their card. For cumulative practice, the chosen cards on the table could vary in accordance with those “facts” they have acquired. Students would then be limited to the facts they have been exposed to in the Multiplication Fact Fluency program.

Take a Chance on Me (or Probability High/Low)

Take a suit of cards (numbered 0–12) out of a deck of Mathnasium playing cards and shuffle. Arrange them in a row, face-down.

Flip the first card (the one on the far left) and look at its value. Think about how many numbers that are left in the set that have higher values and how many there are that have lower values. Guess whether the next card in the row will have a higher or lower value than the first card. Flip the next card over and see if your guess was correct. If it was, repeat step 1 for the next card in the row. Repeat the process and see how many you can guess correctly in a row.

Prime Number Shuffle

Take one red and one black suit of cards (each numbered 0–12) from a deck of Mathnasium playing cards and shuffle. Red cards represent negative numbers; black cards represent positive numbers. Place the cards face-down in a draw pile in the middle of the table. Flip one card face-up next to the draw pile.

Players take turns adding to a sum kept on a piece of scratch paper, which is visible to all other players. On a player’s turn, they can choose which value to add to their sum—either the face-up card or the unknown card at the top of the draw pile. To choose the unknown card, the player flips that one over to replace the old face-up card. The first player to reach a sum that is a prime number 13 or higher wins.

Modification for Numerical Fluency Students

Shuffle a deck of Mathnasium playing cards. Place the cards face-down in a draw pile in the middle of the table. Flip one card face-up next to the draw pile. Players take turns adding to or subtracting from a total kept on a piece of scratch paper, which is visible to all other players. The goal is to reach a total of 17 by either adding or subtracting the value on a card (the player can choose which operation to use). On a player’s turn, they can choose which value to add to or subtract from the total —either the face-up card or the unknown card at the top of the draw pile. To choose the unknown card, the player flips that one over to replace the old face-up card. The first player to reach a total of 17 wins.

Go Fish-Tac-Toe

This activity requires either two students or a student and an instructor, a Mathnasium deck of cards, and a prepared 3 × 3 Tic-Tac-Toe board of products based on the student’s current level, created by the instructor. Your center may have laminated boards located with games or manipulatives. Once players determine who will be Xs and Os, each player should be dealt 7 cards and a draw pile created.

If either player is currently holding a pair of cards whose product is found on the Tic-Tac-Toe board, they can play the pair and claim the product. Players will then alternate turns requesting a “complement” to a card they are holding from the other player to make a product found on the board. For example, if one of the values on the grid is 35 and the player is holding a 7, they could ask the other player for a 5 to complete that product. If the other player is not holding a 5, they may then draw one from the draw pile (“Go Fish”) and the turn switches to the other player. After drawing, the player may then play a pair of cards to claim a product before proceeding to the other player’s turn. Alternatively, a player can choose to draw a card without requesting one from the other player, which immediately ends their turn without the opportunity to play a pair of cards. If a player has fewer than four cards at the end of their turn, the player draws cards until their hand has the minimum hand size of four cards.

If the student has difficulty finding pairs of factors that claim products (e.g., keeps passing the turn), instructors should assist students and remind them of their multiplication strategies. Instructors can also encourage students to use three cards, finding the sum or difference of two of the cards before multiplying by the third to find a product.

Players continue to alternate turns until one player has claimed three products in a row, winning the game; if that becomes impossible, then the first player to claim five products on the board wins.

To generate the board, it is important to understand where a student is along the path of acquiring their facts. For example, if a student is at the end of their 0s, 1s, 2s, 10s, and 5s progression, then any fact associated with those are fair to be placed on the board. Additionally, when choosing products, the instructor compiling the board must be careful to not exceed the number of available cards. A student may not reasonably be able to practice solely their 5s facts using this game as creating a board of 0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 45 could require more 5s than a standard deck would have.

Mathnasium Miscellaneous Games & Activities

Addition/Multiplication War with Dominoes

Deal an odd number of dominoes face-down to each player. On the count of three, each player flips one of their dominoes. The student should then add or multiply both sides of each domino to find out whether they or the instructor win that round. The winner takes both dominoes. Whoever has the most dominoes at the end wins!

Dice Activities

Students can explore multiplication facts using 6- or 12-sided dice, depending on where they are with facts acquisition. For Extending Knowledge, a 20-sided die could be used. This activity could be as simple as rolling two dice and having the student state the product, or if a student is practicing a specific fact they could roll one die and state the product (e.g., if a student is practicing 12s they could roll one die, and if a 5 is facing up they would state the product of 60). Alternatively, they could roll two dice and find the sum first before extending to the product. Laying a Mathnasium playing card on the table can be used to identify specific families of facts to be practiced.

Potential variations could include laying one Mathnasium playing card face-up on the table, then rolling one die (the card times what is showing on the die) or a pair of dice (the card times the sum of what is showing on the dice); roll a die and have the student double (2s), double/double (4s), or double/double/double (8s); or, roll one die, the instructor states a product that would use that die, and the student is prompted to identify the missing value.

Dice Trick

You can add even more fun to all of these activities with a little math magic! The dice “trick” involves having the student use the numbers on the bottom of the dice, without looking, to perform any of the activities above. The “trick” lies in the fact that on a standard die, the largest and smallest numbers are always on opposite sides - for a 6-sided die, this would be 1 and 6 - and the other numbers are arranged in such a way that they also form complements of the same number. On a 6-sided die, this means that 2 and 5 are opposite each other, as are 3 and 4, so that all the pairs add to 7 - the sum of the smallest and largest numbers on the die. Opposite sides of a 12-sided die sum to 13, of a 20-sided die sum to 21, etc. Be sure to use some showmanship when you perform this trick for students - let them puzzle over how you can always predict the bottom number for a few tries before you let them in on the secret! Once they’ve learned it, you can ask them to, for example, multiply the bottom numbers of two dice together without looking, instead of the top numbers - much more exciting!

7 8 9

The object of the game is to be the first to get rid of all the cards in your hand. Shuffle the deck of cards and place one card face up between the players - this will be the discard pile. Deal the remaining cards face down to the players so that each player has an equal number of cards. Set aside any extra cards. Each player should keep their cards stacked face down in a pile in front of them.

The person who dealt the cards says “go!” to start the game play. Each player starts picking up cards from their pile - a player can have as many cards in their hand as they wish, but can only draw one at a time. To play a card, the card must be an answer to the equations shown on the card at the top of the discard pile. For example, if the card at the top of the discard pile has a large yellow number 5 and a small ±1 in the corner, any card with a yellow number 4 (5-1) or a yellow number 6 (5+1) can be played on top of it. There are no turns - players must race to play their cards first! Players can play multiple cards in a row, but only one card at a time. Play continues until one player has discarded their entire stack of cards.

The cards in the deck have large yellow numbers 1 through 10. This means that sometimes the answer to an equation will be larger than 10 or smaller than 1. In this case, think of the numbers as though they were arranged around a clock - after 10, the next number is 1 again. For example, if the card on top of the discard pile has a large yellow number 9 and a small ±3 in the corner, any card with a yellow number 6 (9-3) or a yellow number 2 (9+3, which is counted from 9: 10, 1, 2) can be played on top of it. You can also think of it as though only the 1s place of the answer matters: 9+3=12. If the answer is less than 1, you count backwards, with 10 being the number that comes right before 1. For example, if the card on top of the discard pile has a large yellow number 1 and a small ±3 in the corner, any card with a yellow number 4 (1+3) or a yellow number 8 (1-3, which is counted backwards from 1: 10, 9, 8) can be played on top of it. It may be helpful to draw a visual clue for the student in the form of the numbers 1 through 10 arranged in a circle as if on a clock.

24

The object of the game is to make the number 24 from the four numbers shown on the card. In the original edition, you can add, subtract, multiply and divide. Some editions allow other operations, such as exponentiation, as well. Use all four numbers on the card, but use each number only once. You do not have to use all four operations. All number nines have a red center, so you can tell a nine from a six. Easy cards have one white dot in each corner, medium cards have two red dots, and difficult cards have three yellow dots.

99 or Bust

Every numbered card counts as that exact number, and as each card is laid down, its number is added to the current total count of the pile. In addition, there are special cards that reverse the direction, keep the total the same, or send the total straight to 99.

Beginning to the dealer’s left, the first player lays down one card from their hand face up next to the deck. The player calls out the value of that card and draws a new card from the deck. The next player lays one card from their hand face up on top of the previous player’s card and calls out the new total by adding the value of their card to the current count. They then draw a new card from the deck. In turn, each player lays down a card from their hand on the face-up pile, calls out the new total and picks up the top card from the face-down deck.

Don’t forget to replace your played card with a new one. If you do forget, you CANNOT replace it later and must finish the game with fewer cards than the other players.

Any player who cannot keep the total from going over 99 loses the game/round. The entire deck is re-shuffled by a new dealer, re-dealt, and a new round begins.

Multiplication 4 in a Row

The player who goes first places yellow chips on any two numbers surrounding the grid. They then place a red marker on the product (answer) on the grid. The second player moves only ONE of the yellow chips and then places a blue marker on the product of the new problem. The yellow chips can both be placed on the same number, e.g. to make 9 x 9 = 81. Players continue moving one yellow chip each turn to make a new product until one of them has four numbers covered in a row. Players should strategize to block their opponents from getting four-in-a-row.

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