Best conceptual math games

[Not_a_Number]

I feel like I already had a thread like this, but it might have been under my old username. 

What are everyone's favorite math games that actually illustrate the concepts? So, not games that basically require figuring out something without any scaffolding... games that provide their own scaffolding for concepts?

My favorites so far (let me know if you want detailed descriptions!) 

 

Subitising: 

Any dice games. 

Dominoes. 

Tiny Polka Dot Concentration game -- basically, the "match two cards" game except with MathForLove's lovely Tiny Polka Dot cards, which have many different representations of the same numbers, like ten frames, written numerals, and dice patterns.

 

Addition: 

Addition War with normal cards (face cards removed, Aces as 1s) 

Simplified Blackjack with normal cards (face cards removed, Aces as 1s, no splitting or doubling or anything fancy.) 

Concentration Make-10 with Tiny Polka Dot cards -- same as the usual Concentration game, but a match is a pair that makes 10. 

Chutes and Ladders with a pair of dice instead of a single die. 

 

Place Value: 

Don't Break the Bank with place value poker chips 

Simplified Blackjack as described above, with place value poker chips for betting. 

 

Multiplication: 

Blockout. 

1-2 Nim, or for bigger numbers, 1-2-3 Nim or 1-2-3-4 Nim, or whatever. 

I was working on a Blackjack variant called Bundlejack, where kids had to "bundle" the cards they were dealt by the number on them, and you won (or went bust) according to your largest bundle. It was fun, although a bit involved, and I was still figuring out the precise rules and composition of the deck when the pandemic hit and my classes ended 😞 . 

 

I've tried pretty hard to curate games that actually scaffolded, and that kids ACTUALLY wanted to play (I was kind of shocked by how many math games out there were glorified flash cards), so let me know if you have anything that can be added to this list, or if you try any of them! 

[Xahm]

My four year old loves playing Go Fish for Tens (if you have a, 7, you ask "do you have any 3s"). When I was a kid I played a lot of Rummikub with my grandparents. It gave plenty of practice with mental addition.

[Eilonwy]

I tried Nim 12 and don’t Break the Bank this evening. Nim was the one my kids found the most fun, though both worked.  I’m not sure that kids would necessarily make the connection from Nim to multiplication, though. Does it take a few times, or do you make the connection explicit?  

My favourite adding game is cribbage, I played that a lot with my grandparents when I was a kid.

Does anyone have subtracting or division games?  The division game in BA 3c is pretty good.  There is a honeycomb grid with lots of numbers, you draw a playing card (2-9) and divide the number on the grid where your meeple stands by the value on the card.  You move the meeple the remainder, trying to be the first to cross the board. There is some strategy in not choosing a route that lands you on 72 or another one with a lot of factors. 

[Eilonwy]

On 2/5/2021 at 7:44 PM, Not_a_Number said:

Don't Break the Bank with place value poker chips 

Do you make each number in the grid and then combine them, rather than just adding on paper in a stack? 

[Not_a_Number]

19 minutes ago, Eilonwy said:

I tried Nim 12 and don’t Break the Bank this evening. Nim was the one my kids found the most fun, though both worked.  I’m not sure that kids would necessarily make the connection from Nim to multiplication, though. Does it take a few times, or do you make the connection explicit?  

Yeah, it takes a few times, for sure. And you have to explain what's going on to them, usually. It's very cool when they get it, though. 

 

19 minutes ago, Eilonwy said:

My favourite adding game is cribbage, I played that a lot with my grandparents when I was a kid.

Does anyone have subtracting or division games?  The division game in BA 3c is pretty good.  There is a honeycomb grid with lots of numbers, you draw a playing card (2-9) and divide the number on the grid where your meeple stands by the value on the card.  You move the meeple the remainder, trying to be the first to cross the board. There is some strategy in not choosing a route that lands you on 72 or another one with a lot of factors. 

To be honest, I far prefer treating subtraction and division as afterthoughts to addition and multiplication 😉 . I never did remainders with division, period, because I think it muddles the mental model, and for subtraction, all the games act like it doesn't matter which direction you subtract, and it DOES. 

I've done "go down to zero" Don't Break the Bank -- start at 100, lose if you get under 100. That uses subtraction and shows how it works with place value. And also, betting in blackjack uses very natural subtraction -- when you lose money, it gets taken away from your stack! 

But I really don't like "undirected" subtraction games like Subtraction War. 3-8 is not 8-3 😛 . And I think those games teach kids that it doesn't matter. I can vouch that most of the kids in my homeschool math classes thought the equation 3-8 = 5 was right as is. I don't want to encourage that any further! 

 

11 minutes ago, Eilonwy said:

Do you make each number in the grid and then combine them, rather than just adding on paper in a stack? 

I think I play a simplified version, anyway 🙂 . Math For Love calls it something else. But anyway, we roll a die 7 times, and each time, you can either have that many green poker chips (which are 10s) or that many blue poker chips (which are 1s). You want to get as close to 100 as possible without going over. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 hour ago, Xahm said:

My four year old loves playing Go Fish for Tens (if you have a, 7, you ask "do you have any 3s"). When I was a kid I played a lot of Rummikub with my grandparents. It gave plenty of practice with mental addition.

I tried that one in my class, and I think 4 year olds are about the right audience... all of the older kids got bored 😞 . And they got rid of cards too fast. 

I like Concentration to 10 better, because at least there's an extra layer. But I'm not surprised little kids like this one! I should add it to my list. 

[Terabith]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

I tried that one in my class, and I think 4 year olds are about the right audience... all of the older kids got bored 😞 . And they got rid of cards too fast. 

I like Concentration to 10 better, because at least there's an extra layer. But I'm not surprised little kids like this one! I should add it to my list. 

We played Go to the Dump (which is basically Go Fish for 10's) from Right Start a ton, both in my home and when I taught first grade, and my kids all loved it.  I mean, I'm not sure it would be a lot of fun for the 12 and up crowd, but I certainly played a lot of Go Fish even as a teenager, which is not exactly a challenging game.  I think there's a larger market than just four year olds for it.  

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, Terabith said:

We played Go to the Dump (which is basically Go Fish for 10's) from Right Start a ton, both in my home and when I taught first grade, and my kids all loved it.  I mean, I'm not sure it would be a lot of fun for the 12 and up crowd, but I certainly played a lot of Go Fish even as a teenager, which is not exactly a challenging game.  I think there's a larger market than just four year olds for it.  

Hmmm. Yeah, I don't know. Go Fish to 10 was a serious bust in my class. The kids got rid of their cards very quickly and got bored. I think the fact that you could put down pairs of cards just made things go too quickly. 

Maybe Go To the Dump doesn't have these issues? Or maybe we did something wrong? I have nothing against making 10s in games. I just know that this specific game disappointed me and the kids didn't want to play it again. 

[Terabith]

2 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Hmmm. Yeah, I don't know. Go Fish to 10 was a serious bust in my class. The kids got rid of their cards very quickly and got bored. I think the fact that you could put down pairs of cards just made things go too quickly. 

Maybe Go To the Dump doesn't have these issues? Or maybe we did something wrong? I have nothing against making 10s in games. I just know that this specific game disappointed me and the kids didn't want to play it again. 

The main difference with Go to the Dump was we played with a deck that had cards that went from 0-10, so there was a greater variety of pairs versus a standard card deck.  

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Terabith said:

The main difference with Go to the Dump was we played with a deck that had cards that went from 0-10, so there was a greater variety of pairs versus a standard card deck.  

I mean... the standard card deck has 1 to 9. So not a huge difference? 

But it's possible you just don't run out as quickly. Mostly, my kids minded how quickly the game would go, because they'd ask for all the cards and be done very quickly. I think all the kids playing knew all the addition facts to 10, so they weren't really practicing that, either. 

The kids in my classes LOVED Addition War, so it's not like they required intellectually stimulating games 😉 . So it wasn't that they were too advanced for it or anything. They just didn't enjoy it. 

[Terabith]

6 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I mean... the standard card deck has 1 to 9. So not a huge difference? 

But it's possible you just don't run out as quickly. Mostly, my kids minded how quickly the game would go, because they'd ask for all the cards and be done very quickly. I think all the kids playing knew all the addition facts to 10, so they weren't really practicing that, either. 

The kids in my classes LOVED Addition War, so it's not like they required intellectually stimulating games 😉 . So it wasn't that they were too advanced for it or anything. They just didn't enjoy it. 

Yeah, it was probably a bigger deck.  They also thought going and drawing cards from the dump pile if they didn't have pairs was hilarious, because it was called a dump.  

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Terabith said:

Yeah, it was probably a bigger deck.  They also thought going and drawing cards from the dump pile if they didn't have pairs was hilarious, because it was called a dump.  

Hah. Yeah, that sounds like about the right maturity level for us, too. 

I should try that game if I ever run classes again. I need some good "make 10" games. 

[Terabith]

Honestly, I feel like the Right Start games manual and materials are a worthwhile purchase.  

[Not_a_Number]

5 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Honestly, I feel like the Right Start games manual and materials are a worthwhile purchase.  

Eh, I dunno. I've found lots of game descriptions online. And frankly, I could never find anything that was as good as blackjack for addition practice, anyway... it's a really good game, and fun, too. 

I've seen "Go to the Dump" before, but I haven't tried it. I'll add it to my list of things to try for sure 🙂 .  

[Not_a_Number]

7 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Honestly, I feel like the Right Start games manual and materials are a worthwhile purchase.  

I'm weird, though. I don't believe in subtraction games the way most people do it 😉 . And I don't love abacuses. 

[Terabith]

15 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I'm weird, though. I don't believe in subtraction games the way most people do it 😉 . And I don't love abacuses. 

Neither did my kids, but it was really helpful for at least my oldest.  My youngest did much better with c-rods, although nonexistent working memory made most early arithmetic beyond challenging.  I'm so glad she now can hold up to three pieces of information in her head.  At three, you can be somewhat functional.  When she was tapped out at one, there simply weren't a lot of resources that worked.  

I don't recall playing many subtraction games though.  We didn't have the full games assortment, but I did A-C, and a lot of games came with those levels.  

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Terabith said:

Neither did my kids, but it was really helpful for at least my oldest. 

I prefer a more straightforward place value model, personally. Hence the poker chips. Things that you can count can prevent you from actually engaging with place value, I think. 

What did your oldest find helpful about it? 

 

1 minute ago, Terabith said:

My youngest did much better with c-rods, although nonexistent working memory made most early arithmetic beyond challenging.  I'm so glad she now can hold up to three pieces of information in her head.  At three, you can be somewhat functional.  When she was tapped out at one, there simply weren't a lot of resources that worked.  

Yeah, that's a difficult problem I don't know if I could solve!! 

[Terabith]

2 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I prefer a more straightforward place value model, personally. Hence the poker chips. Things that you can count can prevent you from actually engaging with place value, I think. 

What did your oldest find helpful about it? 

 

Yeah, that's a difficult problem I don't know if I could solve!! 

Well, the abacus isn't their main manipulative for teaching place value.  They use place value cards.  At the beginning we used actual place value blocks instead of the cards, but we transitioned to the cards when we started doing problems bigger than the number of blocks we had.  

The abacus was more useful for things like building mental models and learning both addition facts (because it allows you to mentally represent numbers up through ten in sets of fives) and to do mental double digit addition.  I think we used it a little bit for larger addition problems, but the place value cards were the "teaching manipulative" for those.  

[Terabith]

And the Right Start abacus, the manuals are gung ho on "You DO NOT EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES count."  

Like the whole point of the abacus is to teach kids to visualize without counting.  

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Terabith said:

The abacus was more useful for things like building mental models and learning both addition facts (because it allows you to mentally represent numbers up through ten in sets of fives) and to do mental double digit addition.  I think we used it a little bit for larger addition problems, but the place value cards were the "teaching manipulative" for those.  

Mental models for what? 

I think for addition facts, we mostly did some mixture of counting on, making 10, using facts we know already, and just plain old drill. I also wasn't super worried about how long they took to get absorbed, although I would have been worried if we'd had no progress! 

Wouldn't you want to use place value for doing mental double digit addition? I'm not sure why you'd need a separate model for that. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Terabith said:

And the Right Start abacus, the manuals are gung ho on "You DO NOT EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES count."  

Like the whole point of the abacus is to teach kids to visualize without counting.  

I'm not that anti-counting, actually. I like counting for small additions just fine, because it reinforces the mental model of addition as nothing but a fancy way to count. I just don't like it for place value, because you can absolutely avoid learning how place value works if you count big numbers. 

I don't even like counting by 10s, because I think it also keeps you from engaging with place value... 

[Terabith]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

Mental models for what? 

I think for addition facts, we mostly did some mixture of counting on, making 10, using facts we know already, and just plain old drill. I also wasn't super worried about how long they took to get absorbed, although I would have been worried if we'd had no progress! 

Wouldn't you want to use place value for doing mental double digit addition? I'm not sure why you'd need a separate model for that. 

It gave you mental models for what numbers up to 100 look like.  And yes, they definitely teach you to use place value, but it's really helpful to have a mental idea of what 63 or whatever looks like.  

It also lets you do stuff with 5's.  So like, 8+7 becomes adding the 5 from the 8 and the 5 from the 7 and then adding the 3 left over from the 8 and the 2 left over from the 7.  

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Terabith said:

But it's really helpful to have a mental idea of what 63 or whatever looks like.  

I actually kind of disagree with that, believe it or not. I don't think it's a great idea to think of 63 as anything other than 6 tens and 3 ones. it muddles your thinking. 

By definition, it's 6 tens and 3 ones. Finished, complete, end of story. 

[Terabith]

2 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I actually kind of disagree with that, believe it or not. I don't think it's a great idea to think of 63 as anything other than 6 tens and 3 ones. it muddles your thinking. 

By definition, it's 6 tens and 3 ones. Finished, complete, end of story. 

Well yes, but it lets you see what 6 tens looks like.  There's a ton of work around visualizing numbers up through 10.  

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Terabith said:

Well yes, but it lets you see what 6 tens looks like.  There's a ton of work around visualizing numbers up through 10.  

6 tens is 6 green poker chips 😛 . Or 6 "boxes" of 10, for DD8 before we got some poker chips. Ta-da! 

Edited February 7, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Terabith]

2 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

6 tens is 6 green poker chips 😛 . Or 6 "boxes" of 10, for DD8 before we got some poker chips. Ta-da! 

My kids couldn't imagine 6 anything.  It took real instruction for them to learn what 5 looked like.  My oldest could visualize 3 when we started but no more.  My youngest couldn't visualize more than 1, and she was a horrible counter because she always lost her place, so if she relied on counting, she'd get the answer wrong every single time.  She HAD to learn to visualize and build mental models of what numbers up to 10 looked like, because counting wasn't a reliable strategy for her.  

But with the abacus, they learned to visualize up to 10.  

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Terabith said:

My kids couldn't imagine 6 anything.  It took real instruction for them to learn what 5 looked like.  My oldest could visualize 3 when we started but no more.  My youngest couldn't visualize more than 1, and she was a horrible counter because she always lost her place, so if she relied on counting, she'd get the answer wrong every single time.  She HAD to learn to visualize and build mental models of what numbers up to 10 looked like, because counting wasn't a reliable strategy for her.  

But with the abacus, they learned to visualize up to 10.  

Are you visualizing up to 10 or after 10? I like visualizing up to 10 just fine. We tend to use dice and ten frames for those -- we're all bird brains, it's hard for us to imagine things after 5 or so unless they are in a pattern. 

I'm all for visualizing small numbers. But I don't like visualizing big numbers except using their place value representation. 

[Not_a_Number]

But I also don't know that one really needs to be able to visualize numbers past 5 all that much. You need to know that you can break numbers up and put them together again, but really, why do you need to visualize a 9? 

ETA: if I try to visualize a 9, I see the written numeral 😛 . If I make myself think about it, I get a 3 by 3 grid or a ten-frame that's missing a dot. But I don't think I ever use this ability to visualize it. 

Edited February 7, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Terabith]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

Are you visualizing up to 10 or after 10? I like visualizing up to 10 just fine. We tend to use dice and ten frames for those -- we're all bird brains, it's hard for us to imagine things after 5 or so unless they are in a pattern. 

I'm all for visualizing small numbers. But I don't like visualizing big numbers except using their place value representation. 

You're visualizing up to 10.  With the abacus, if you're visualizing it a number that's more than 10, you're visualizing that number of 10's and that number of 1's.  Because of the way the colors change, if you're visualizing 63, you're literally visualizing 6 groups of 10's and 3 ones.  But building numbers over 10 on the abacus is done mostly pretty early on.  It's not something you're doing in second or third grade still.  

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Terabith said:

You're visualizing up to 10.  With the abacus, if you're visualizing it a number that's more than 10, you're visualizing that number of 10's and that number of 1's.  Because of the way the colors change, if you're visualizing 63, you're literally visualizing 6 groups of 10's and 3 ones.  But building numbers over 10 on the abacus is done mostly pretty early on.  It's not something you're doing in second or third grade still.  

So... this is my own thing, but I don't like visualizing "groups" of 10. I think a group of 10 needs to be a unit, not a bunch of different units stuck together. For mental model reasons. 

But it sounds like a fine manipulative. Just not obviously better than anything else that helps you visualize small numbers. 

[Terabith]

3 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

But I also don't know that one really needs to be able to visualize numbers past 5 all that much. You need to know that you can break numbers up and put them together again, but really, why do you need to visualize a 9? 

ETA: if I try to visualize a 9, I see the written numeral 😛 . If I make myself think about it, I get a 3 by 3 grid or a ten-frame that's missing a dot. But I don't think I ever use this ability to visualize it. 

Yeah, visualizing over 5 is done in groups of 5.  So 9 is 5 and 4, with the 5 one color and the four a different color.  

Anyway, it was useful for us, but it's not the only useful model.  I feel like her level B first grade curriculum is absolute genius.  The kindergarten is okay and we actually jumped ship most of the way through the second grade program.  But the first grade was awesome.  

[Not_a_Number]

7 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Yeah, visualizing over 5 is done in groups of 5.  So 9 is 5 and 4, with the 5 one color and the four a different color.  

Anyway, it was useful for us, but it's not the only useful model.  I feel like her level B first grade curriculum is absolute genius.  The kindergarten is okay and we actually jumped ship most of the way through the second grade program.  But the first grade was awesome.  

I've heard that some of the levels are better than others 🙂 . 

I'm currently running through the same thing I did with DD8 with DD4. I tend to try to start on "algebraic ideas" pretty early with my kids, and I tend to want to linger over concepts. For me, the early concepts are 

1) The meaning of addition

2) The meaning of subtraction

3) The meaning of the equals sign. 

4) Place value 

5) Variables, sort of. 

There isn't really much else there. Each concept takes a good long while to sink it, in my experience, especially place value -- place value is HARD and has taken both my kids months to wrap their heads around. The idea that one unit is worth more than another one is tricky! 

I also teach counting on as the first addition trick, and so far it has served my kids well. Everything else is much easier if you can count on -- the number of addition facts really decreases. 

We also do lots of "algebraic" reasoning. And we don't do equations like 3 + 4 =  . 

Edited February 7, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[4atHome]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

Hah. Yeah, that sounds like about the right maturity level for us, too. 

I should try that game if I ever run classes again. I need some good "make 10" games. 

We have I Sea Ten.  Bought it from TWTM in their markdowns.  Sounds similar to go fish.  My 6 year old likes it and my 9 yr old plays with him sometimes.  

[Terabith]

20 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I've heard that some of the levels are better than others 🙂 . 

I'm currently running through the same thing I did with DD8 with DD4. I tend to try to start on "algebraic ideas" pretty early with my kids, and I tend to want to linger over concepts. For me, the early concepts are 

1) The meaning of addition

2) The meaning of subtraction

3) The meaning of the equals sign. 

4) Place value 

5) Variables, sort of. 

There isn't really much else there. Each concept takes a good long while to sink it, in my experience, especially place value -- place value is HARD and has taken both my kids months to wrap their heads around. The idea that one unit is worth more than another one is tricky! 

I also teach counting on as the first addition trick, and so far it has served my kids well. Everything else is much easier if you can count on -- the number of addition facts really decreases. 

We also do lots of "algebraic" reasoning. And we don't do equations like 3 + 4 =  . 

Yeah.  Neither of my kids had any issues with place value, which was somewhat weird, since my younger one struggled with every other aspect of math.  I really feel like that was an area Right Start shone on.  They had no issue with the idea of some units being worth more than other ones, but we built dozens of big numbers with place value blocks from like age 3.  

Honestly, other than the meaning of subtraction, none of those were super hard for my kids to get conceptually.  Variables were fine if they were a blank or a flower or something.  They were a problem if they were letters for a few years.  

My kids did well with concepts, but learning facts was brutal for both my kids and frankly, my younger one never learned more than a few of them.  

[Not_a_Number]

7 hours ago, Terabith said:

Yeah.  Neither of my kids had any issues with place value, which was somewhat weird, since my younger one struggled with every other aspect of math.  I really feel like that was an area Right Start shone on. 

Cool. I don't mean to pick on Right Start -- I've heard good things about the curriculum, especially the earlier levels. 

 

Quote

They had no issue with the idea of some units being worth more than other ones, but we built dozens of big numbers with place value blocks from like age 3.  

So, when I say "the meaning of place value," I mean actually using it for calculations. I can tell you from my time in my homeschool classes that most kids are not fluent in doing operations by trading units, even thought the vast majority of them can tell you that "these are 100s, these are 10s, these are 1s." In my experience, adding using place value is easier than using place value to subtract, which is easier than using place value to divide. (I don't remember where multiplying is in this scheme. Perhaps right after adding?) 

In my experience, concepts aren't just one thing you see a few times and you're done. Concepts are something you need to integrate into your understanding from quite a few angles before they feel natural. 

 

Quote

Honestly, other than the meaning of subtraction, none of those were super hard for my kids to get conceptually.  Variables were fine if they were a blank or a flower or something.  They were a problem if they were letters for a few years.  

Right, but that's just the start of variables. We also start on using "shapes" as opposed to letters, and that was helpful, but if all you ever do is solve for these shapes, then you aren't getting a full understanding of variables. Variables don't always need solving for, and I've definitely seen kids at AoPS who DO think variables are just for solving. 

What I usually see with curricula is that they spend a decent amount of time on a concept like place value, but then they barely come back to the mental model scaffolding ever again. So, if you've learned place value during addition and subtraction, for example, you're unlikely to spend much time on it during multiplication and division, because it's something you're assumed to more or less understand already. You might see the manipulatives pulled out as a demo for long division, but no one will act like you've probably not fully integrated the concept of place value itself (which is in my experience true.) 

 

Quote

My kids did well with concepts, but learning facts was brutal for both my kids and frankly, my younger one never learned more than a few of them.  

I'm not surprised they had a harder time with facts than concepts, knowing what I know about your kiddos. 

I'm curious: did Right Start teach "counting on"? It seems to have gone out of fashion recently, because of the fact that it uses counting, I think, and the popular thing right now is subitising. But I found that I absolutely needed to teach my kids to count on for them to be able to do mental arithmetic. If adding 1 and 2 (and sometimes 3) to a number is fast and takes few steps, it's MUCH easier to remember those facts. And I found that I needed automatic recall on the "small additions" to teach them to be able to use mental math tricks like rearranging the number. For instance, if you're doing 4 and 5, and you want to use that it's 4 and 4 and 1, it's best if you think adding 1 to a number is a total piece of cake, and not yet another thing you need to memorize. 

I taught "counting on" as an extension of counting, and I found that it took a while to absorb in that way -- kids sometimes would want to start at 1 instead of the next number. Once it's absorbed, though, it's pretty easy to convince kids not to count starting from 1, which frankly serves as its own subitising and visualizing practice. 

Edited February 7, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[medawyn]

7 hours ago, 4atHome said:

We have I Sea Ten.  Bought it from TWTM in their markdowns.  Sounds similar to go fish.  My 6 year old likes it and my 9 yr old plays with him sometimes.  

My kids have had an unholy love for this game.  I was so relieved when my two older kids could play independently.  My 7 year old is almost finished with BA3 and he will still happily play with his two younger siblings.  I do not get it.  But yay for practicing facts to ten! (and actually, I use other target sums as well)

[Not_a_Number]

1 hour ago, medawyn said:

My kids have had an unholy love for this game.  I was so relieved when my two older kids could play independently.  My 7 year old is almost finished with BA3 and he will still happily play with his two younger siblings.  I do not get it.  But yay for practicing facts to ten! (and actually, I use other target sums as well)

I didn't understand why the kids in my classes were so excited about Addition War, either! Including my very strong kids who certainly could have played more conceptually challenging games... 

Sometimes, kids like simple games, lol. 

[Xahm]

We got our version of Go Fish for Ten from Addition Facts that Stick. It has you keep playing longer by drawing 5 new cards when you run out and going until the deck is empty. It gets lots more practice in! We use 40 Skip Bo cards, but she suggests a regular deck with face cards removed.

I haven't looked through the Subtraction Facts book yet to check out those games. She does encourage you to teach the child to count on. The worksheets that go along with it have some questions on the traditional format but others with a missing addend. My kids have all been fine developing an understanding of the equals sign using that sort of combination. My 4 year old was doing an activity a few months back (from MEP) where you had to choose greater than, less than, or equals for two expressions, and he asked me, "what do you call this 'same as' one again?"

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, Xahm said:

The worksheets that go along with it have some questions on the traditional format but others with a missing addend. My kids have all been fine developing an understanding of the equals sign using that sort of combination. My 4 year old was doing an activity a few months back (from MEP) where you had to choose greater than, less than, or equals for two expressions, and he asked me, "what do you call this 'same as' one again?"

Hah. I think this has to do with how you talk about it, probably! If you say "same as" a lot, it's a different set up. 

The really bright kid I had in my homeschool classes who is mostly unschooled and taught himself largely via Khan academy didn't think the equation 

13 + 4 = _ + 5 

even MADE SENSE, so trust me that this is not limited to kids who have trouble with math!! 

Edited February 7, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Xahm]

6 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Hah. I think this has to do with how you talk about it, probably! If you say "same as" a lot, it's a different set up. 

The really bright kid I had in my homeschool classes who is mostly unschooled and taught himself largely via Khan academy didn't think the equation 

13 + 4 = _ + 5 

even MADE SENSE, so trust me that this is not limited to kids who have trouble with math!! 

That's a big reason to advocate for math not being done completely independently. Having those kinds of problems from the beginning helps teach the parent as well as the child.

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Xahm said:

That's a big reason to advocate for math not being done completely independently. Having those kinds of problems from the beginning helps teach the parent as well as the child.

Yeah, absolutely. Totally agree. 

[Not_a_Number]

OK, I'll add "Go Fish" and "I Sea Ten" and "Go To The Dump" to my "Addition Games" list 😄 . 

Perhaps it'd be useful to have quick links to the game rules? Anyone have those for the games that can be played with a normal deck? 

[Terabith]

6 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I'm not surprised they had a harder time with facts than concepts, knowing what I know about your kiddos. 

I'm curious: did Right Start teach "counting on"? It seems to have gone out of fashion recently, because of the fact that it uses counting, I think, and the popular thing right now is subitising. But I found that I absolutely needed to teach my kids to count on for them to be able to do mental arithmetic. If adding 1 and 2 (and sometimes 3) to a number is fast and takes few steps, it's MUCH easier to remember those facts. And I found that I needed automatic recall on the "small additions" to teach them to be able to use mental math tricks like rearranging the number. For instance, if you're doing 4 and 5, and you want to use that it's 4 and 4 and 1, it's best if you think adding 1 to a number is a total piece of cake, and not yet another thing you need to memorize. 

I taught "counting on" as an extension of counting, and I found that it took a while to absorb in that way -- kids sometimes would want to start at 1 instead of the next number. Once it's absorbed, though, it's pretty easy to convince kids not to count starting from 1, which frankly serves as its own subitising and visualizing practice. 

Right Start does teach "counting on" but it says that's a strategy best used for adding 1, 2, or sometimes 3.  It uses subsitizing a lot, but more for adding bigger numbers.  

[Not_a_Number]

17 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Right Start does teach "counting on" but it says that's a strategy best used for adding 1, 2, or sometimes 3.  It uses subsitizing a lot, but more for adding bigger numbers.  

Yeah, I only use it for adding teeny numbers, too. It gets tedious for larger numbers! But I've found it necessary for doing any of the other tricks I might do for remembering how to add. 

For bigger numbers, we do subitize, I guess, although mostly in the "we already know how to add small numbers, so then we can rearrange things" way. I don't know that I've ever focused on visualizing quantities with my kids, but then they didn't seem to find that particularly challenging, so I wouldn't have. (And I do think humans aren't particularly good at it. People can naturally visualize a fairly small number of numbers unless you start using patterns like abacuses, dice, and ten frames.) 

At some point, I remember reading something about how using fingers might be connected to one's number sense 🙂 . I wonder if that's true? I did have kids in my homeschooling classes who seem to have never used their fingers to count, and they did have lower number sense, but I don't know which was the causation flows, if you know what I mean. 

It's hard to disentangle all of it! One doesn't really know how what one does affects things... we need more studies 😄 . 

Edited February 7, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Little Green Leaves]

A lot of classic card games seem almost designed to teach about probability. My son loves bridge (and really most card games), and I think it's done a lot to help him understand probability. 

For addition and subtraction -- we did a lot of walking around math, as in, here we are on 28th street and we need to get to 35th street. How many blocks do we need to walk? I feel like you could make an online map game that way. 

[Not_a_Number]

17 minutes ago, Little Green Leaves said:

A lot of classic card games seem almost designed to teach about probability. My son loves bridge (and really most card games), and I think it's done a lot to help him understand probability. 

For addition and subtraction -- we did a lot of walking around math, as in, here we are on 28th street and we need to get to 35th street. How many blocks do we need to walk? I feel like you could make an online map game that way. 

... that works less well in places other than where we live, lol. But I did use the numbered streets a lot when we did math drills. “Please multiply the digits of the next subway stop!”

[Eilonwy]

20 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I've done "go down to zero" Don't Break the Bank -- start at 100, lose if you get under 100. That uses subtraction and shows how it works with place value. And also, betting in blackjack uses very natural subtraction -- when you lose money, it gets taken away from your stack! 

But I really don't like "undirected" subtraction games like Subtraction War. 3-8 is not 8-3 😛 .

Thanks for the subtraction Break the Bank idea, I will try that!  I used your simplified method as well today with just counters for 10s and ones, and that was easier and more fun that the grid from Math for Love, for the kids I played it with. 
Maybe you could get around the problem with subtraction war by saying you must subtract in the order they are placed in.  With younger kids, a question like 3-8 could be “less than zero” where highest result wins, and with older they could get negative numbers. 

[Eilonwy]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

that works less well in places other than where we live, lol.

Too difficult for us, hardly any numbered streets to be found in our city!

[Not_a_Number]

2 minutes ago, Eilonwy said:

Thanks for the subtraction Break the Bank idea, I will try that!  I used your simplified method as well today with just counters for 10s and ones, and that was easier and more fun that the grid from Math for Love, for the kids I played it with. 
Maybe you could get around the problem with subtraction war by saying you must subtract in the order they are placed in.  With younger kids, a question like 3-8 could be “less than zero” where highest result wins, and with older they could get negative numbers. 

Yeah, that's a great idea. That's actually kind of my older girl wound up learning negatives! We would put a question mark for questions that were "less than 0," just to remind her about the order. Soon, she couldn't wait to find out what all those mysterious question marks were. 

Oooh. Or always take the red from the black?? Pull from two decks of different colors? 

Edited February 7, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Eilonwy said:

Too difficult for us, hardly any numbered streets to be found in our city!

We live in Manhattan 😉 . It's a wonderful idea for us, lol! But perhaps not for most people.