MATH GAMES AND JOURNALS
Quick Math Games
Often in elementary school between assemblies, gym, music, recess, lunch, or lessons, teachers have little 5 minutes gaps of time. Perhaps students are all done an activity or they have just come back from gym and there are 5 minutes until the bell rings. It is not enough time to teach something new, and some math games take 3-5 minutes to get set up and started. Below, I will discuss a few quick activities that I used during my internship which were engaging and very effective for students to practice thinking mathematically and using mathematical language to communicate.
What number am I?
I learned this game from my cooperating teacher during my internship.
Instructions
The teacher thinks of a number and the students must ask yes or not questions using mathematical language. Students are not to just guess numbers. They must ask questions like the following to lead them to the specific number.
For example:
“Is the number greater than 100?”
“Is the number less than 50?
“Is it odd?”
“Can it be divided evenly by 3”?
“Is it between 20 and 30?
The student who guesses the number gets to choose a number for the class to guess.
This game is great and can be adapted to any math level depending on the number the teacher chooses and the questions that the students ask. It can be played as a whole class, in groups or pairs.
What shape am I?
I improvised this game which is based off of the game above What number am I? I was teaching grade 5 geometry and tried this game with the students.
Instructions
The teacher chooses either a 2D shape or a 3D solid that the students have learned. The students must discover what shape the teacher is by asking yes no questions about the shapes attributes.
For example:
“It is a 2D shape?”
“Does it have 3 sides”?
“Does it have perpendicular sides?”
“Does it have 2 pairs of parallel sides?”
“Is it a quadrilateral?”
“Is it a parallelogram”?
“Is it a 3D solid?”
“Does it have vertices?”
“Does it have 5 edges?”
“Does it have faces which are all the same shape?”
The student who guesses the 2D shape or 3D solid gets to choose the next shape and answer the questions from the class-with or without help from the teacher.
This game can be simplified by giving students access to the shapes and solids to help guide them in their questioning. It can also be limited to 2-4 shapes or solids to strengthen contrasting attributes. For example the 3D solid must either be a pyramid or prism. For upper levels, 2D and 3D shapes can be in the mix and students would not have access to the shapes. They could either visualize them or draw them on dotted paper.
Another option is for students to try to draw the shape or solid on dotted paper with the information of each question asked. Which questions are more important to ask early on in the process?
This game can be played as a whole class, in groups or pairs.
10 more 10 less
Another popular game my cooperating teacher made up to use with the grade 5 math class which involves mental math.
Instructions
The teacher tells the students a number. Then says either ten more or ten less and students do the mental math. When the teacher says stop, students then raise their hand, teacher draws a student name or calls on a student for the answer.
For example:
Teacher: My number is 33.
“Ten more. Ten more. Ten more. Ten less. Ten more. Stop.”
“What number am I?”
Student: “63!”
The student who answered may take the place of the teacher, pick a new number and give the instructions. The student may have access to a calculator, it can be hard to keep track at times!
Some adaptations that I created for this game for younger levels could be using the number 1 or 2 in place of 10. It can also be changed to 100 or 1000 to work on larger numbers. To work on multiplication, numbers between 2-12 could be used.
For very advanced students, the number could always be different.
For example:
Teacher: My number is 97.
“13 more. 54 less. 109 more. 2 less. Stop.”
“What number am I?”
Student: “163!”
Furthermore this game could be changed from addition and subtraction to multiplication or division, or involve all four operations.
For example:
Teacher: My number is 96.
“One third (divide by 3). Double (multiply by two). 7 more. Stop.”
“What number am I?”
Student: “71!”
In all examples, the amount of operations that the students are required to do increases the difficulty for the game. For young students perhaps just having one step (10 more. Stop.) is difficult enough. In higher grades or for advanced students, they could use 4 or more operations.
Often in elementary school between assemblies, gym, music, recess, lunch, or lessons, teachers have little 5 minutes gaps of time. Perhaps students are all done an activity or they have just come back from gym and there are 5 minutes until the bell rings. It is not enough time to teach something new, and some math games take 3-5 minutes to get set up and started. Below, I will discuss a few quick activities that I used during my internship which were engaging and very effective for students to practice thinking mathematically and using mathematical language to communicate.
What number am I?
I learned this game from my cooperating teacher during my internship.
Instructions
The teacher thinks of a number and the students must ask yes or not questions using mathematical language. Students are not to just guess numbers. They must ask questions like the following to lead them to the specific number.
For example:
“Is the number greater than 100?”
“Is the number less than 50?
“Is it odd?”
“Can it be divided evenly by 3”?
“Is it between 20 and 30?
The student who guesses the number gets to choose a number for the class to guess.
This game is great and can be adapted to any math level depending on the number the teacher chooses and the questions that the students ask. It can be played as a whole class, in groups or pairs.
What shape am I?
I improvised this game which is based off of the game above What number am I? I was teaching grade 5 geometry and tried this game with the students.
Instructions
The teacher chooses either a 2D shape or a 3D solid that the students have learned. The students must discover what shape the teacher is by asking yes no questions about the shapes attributes.
For example:
“It is a 2D shape?”
“Does it have 3 sides”?
“Does it have perpendicular sides?”
“Does it have 2 pairs of parallel sides?”
“Is it a quadrilateral?”
“Is it a parallelogram”?
“Is it a 3D solid?”
“Does it have vertices?”
“Does it have 5 edges?”
“Does it have faces which are all the same shape?”
The student who guesses the 2D shape or 3D solid gets to choose the next shape and answer the questions from the class-with or without help from the teacher.
This game can be simplified by giving students access to the shapes and solids to help guide them in their questioning. It can also be limited to 2-4 shapes or solids to strengthen contrasting attributes. For example the 3D solid must either be a pyramid or prism. For upper levels, 2D and 3D shapes can be in the mix and students would not have access to the shapes. They could either visualize them or draw them on dotted paper.
Another option is for students to try to draw the shape or solid on dotted paper with the information of each question asked. Which questions are more important to ask early on in the process?
This game can be played as a whole class, in groups or pairs.
10 more 10 less
Another popular game my cooperating teacher made up to use with the grade 5 math class which involves mental math.
Instructions
The teacher tells the students a number. Then says either ten more or ten less and students do the mental math. When the teacher says stop, students then raise their hand, teacher draws a student name or calls on a student for the answer.
For example:
Teacher: My number is 33.
“Ten more. Ten more. Ten more. Ten less. Ten more. Stop.”
“What number am I?”
Student: “63!”
The student who answered may take the place of the teacher, pick a new number and give the instructions. The student may have access to a calculator, it can be hard to keep track at times!
Some adaptations that I created for this game for younger levels could be using the number 1 or 2 in place of 10. It can also be changed to 100 or 1000 to work on larger numbers. To work on multiplication, numbers between 2-12 could be used.
For very advanced students, the number could always be different.
For example:
Teacher: My number is 97.
“13 more. 54 less. 109 more. 2 less. Stop.”
“What number am I?”
Student: “163!”
Furthermore this game could be changed from addition and subtraction to multiplication or division, or involve all four operations.
For example:
Teacher: My number is 96.
“One third (divide by 3). Double (multiply by two). 7 more. Stop.”
“What number am I?”
Student: “71!”
In all examples, the amount of operations that the students are required to do increases the difficulty for the game. For young students perhaps just having one step (10 more. Stop.) is difficult enough. In higher grades or for advanced students, they could use 4 or more operations.