Math Games

The purpose of Math games is same as other areas of recreational math; to entertain and enable learning. The difference is that a game is played by more than one person and it is competitive in nature.

Math Games achieve 3 objectives.

One is that they provide a lot of practice in a fun way. Math needs a lot of practice to internalise concepts & procedures.

Second is slightly deeper. A game needs quick decision making in terms of several options be available. Hence it develops critical thinking skills.

Third is even more deeper. At the higher levels, math is actually like a game played with a set of rules which you can decide. Different geometries were discovered when the rules of the geometry game - the fifth postulate - were changed.

All cultures have evolved games where the concepts of counting & estimation were involved. Some games were strategy oriented and the trick was to learn them through repeated play and observation of the moves. Let us see some of them.

Snakes & Ladders can be played with several players. It evolved as the game signifying the path of a soul from birth to death through many triumphs and tribulations. In ancient India it was known as Moksha Patham. The triumphs are ladders on the board which help you to go ahead skipping several steps. Tribulations are snakes which can swallow you and leave you several steps behind.

Tic-Tac-Toe also called Noughts & Crosses is a strategy game played on a 3X3 board. It evolved independently in many cultures. It is a 2-person game where the players alternately keep noughts & crosses, the winner being the person who gets all his noughts or crosses in a row, column or diagonal first. It is a relatively easy game to analyse and ensure that one will not lose.

Nim is a 2-player game, said to have originated in China. It starts with several piles of pebbles. Each player alternately can remove one, or many or all pebbles from any one of the piles. The loser is one who is forced to pick up the last pebble. Mathematicians have found the winning strategy for this game which involves the use of the binary number system.

Pallankuzhi is a game which is very popular in south I dia. It belongs to a family of games, called ‘mancala’ which are played in many cultures around the world. It seems to have originated from the idea of sowing & capture.

Pachisi is another multi-player game which is said to have originated in medieval India. It is played on a cross-shaped board. It means “twenty-five” in Hindi and probably refers to the largest number of moves in any one turn. It is believed to the game which was played between Pandavas & Kauravas where Pandavas lost.

Chess is a 2-play strategy game which originated in India as Chaturanga, meaning “Four Sections”. It is played on a 8X8 board mirroring 2 opposing armies having 4 kinds of armies (rook/elephant, horse, bishop/camel & foot soldiers/pawns. In addition, each army has a King and a Queen. Chess is one of the most popular games and have been analysed extensively using computer software. Now all top players use computer software to analyse their and other’s games. In the last 2 decades specially developed computer software with AI capabilities have proved their superiority over human players.

In the last 10 years, a lot of computer-based math games have been developed to improve children’s competencies in different areas of math.

Today teachers can also get a lot of information from the Internet.