Coaches Corner: December 14, 2017

Coaches Corner: December 14, 2017
Posted on 12/14/2017
Dear Families,

At this time of year, some of you might be thinking about what to do over vacation that will be fun and help your kids keep learning math. One answer is… card games!! Card games are a great way for kids to practice math skills. In general, when you play these games, take out the Jacks, Queens, Kings and Jokers. Aces are worth 1.

An old classic, War, can be adapted for all ages. We call this “Compare” in school.

The original version is great for kindergarteners. Simply divide your deck in half. Each person flips a card. Whoever has the higher number wins both cards. If the cards have the same value, then each person puts down three cards face down, then flips the fourth over. The player with the higher value gets all the cards. When someone runs out of cards, the other person wins.
For first and second graders, keep playing Compare, but this time flip over two cards each time to make it Addition Compare. Now whichever player has the highest total gets the cards. Or you can make this Subtraction Compare by having the players flip two cards and then subtract the lower one from the higher one. Now the person with the lowest value wins!

Third through fifth graders might like to play Multiplication Compare. In this version, each player flips over two cards and then multiplies them. To make it even harder, each person can flip over three cards - use two of them to make a 2-digit number and then multiply. (For example, if someone flips over a 3, 7, and 4, it could become 37 x 4. Have 10s be 0’s in this version.)
These are just a few variations. Play these or make up your own. In addition this website has lots of ideas for different math card games.


Have fun playing!
Nili Pearlmutter, Haggerty Math Coach
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