It is possible for a teacher to make the material and activities they use challenging and still have fun in the classroom. We know that time is one of the biggest obstacles in teaching, so here is a compiled collection of engaging math games for middle school math using only an ordinary deck of playing cards. Keeping students interested, active, and engaged makes a significant difference in the overall learning experience and I believe that this collection of math games will do just that.
Math card games provide an excellent source of multisensory support, extra repetition, and variety.
Here are few game you can use in your classroom. You can get all these games below and more here at this website:
http://pepnonprofit.org/uploads/2/7/7/2/2772238/acing_math.pdf
To review operations with fractions with my high schoolers, I used a similar card game, though it operates more as a problem bank.
ReplyDeleteIn partners or small groups, the students lay out five cards: two pairs stacked as fractions and one card between the fractions to serve as the operation. The suit of the operation card (heart, diamond, spade, club) represents what the students are to do with the fractions: add, subtract, multiply, or divide. The value of the cards represents the value of the fractions with ace as one, jacks as 11, queens as 12, and kings as 13.
I do not let them rearrange the cards, so the fractions might be improper or have uncommon denominators. If adding or subtracting, the students must find common denominators. I allow the students to leave answers as improper fractions.
On their on piece of paper, the students write down the problem and solve, with the other partners checking the work or helping.
I will not let the students use calculators for this.
The variety of problems keeps the students interested and actually moves quite quickly.