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Math Place Value Concentration

Please email me with question or comments at asiu@msn.com.

Items Needed:  Print off below template on business cards.

Purpose: To increase students awareness of place value and lining up numbers on their place value when adding and subtracting. Ideal math game for centers.

Instructions: Give the students two number with or without decimal points that they are supposed to add or subtract. Have them select the digits from the deck that are used in the numbers. If a digit is used, for example, three times there must be three instances of that digit. Turn over the cards and begin playing math concentration. A match is made when digits are turned over--one from each number--that are in the same place value.

Template: Concentration Game

 

Musical Chairs

Items Needed: Print off musical chair game on business cards. Print of place value names on cardstock. Business cards have the digits. Label chairs with place values.

Purpose: To increase students awareness of the value of each place. Math game that can be adapted for many age levels by adding or taking away place values.

Instructions: Give the students a digit card or have them draw one from a pile. Start the music. When the music stops they sit in a chair. They then must tell you what their digit means when it is sitting in their place. For example: If the digit 2 is sitting in the tens place it means 2 groups of 10.

Templates: Musical Chairs Game

Place Value Labels

 

Fraction Twister

Items Needed:  Twister Board,  spinner,  tape or wax sticks to make twister circles into fractions,   chips or marker for keeping track of points, and  beans or marker for making fractions

Purpose: To teach fractions visually and kinesthetically. To demonstrate the difference between numerators and denominators.

Instructions:

  1. For the younger kids have them work together to make the board –use wax sticks to divide the pies into fractions or tape.  IF use wax sticks, a rolling pin is helpful to keep them in place.
  2. Play find the denominator.  Divide the group into 4 teams. Have each team stand in a line at the corners. Spin the denominator spinner.  The person at the head of each line must then run to a pie that is divided into the right denominator. Sometimes there is more than one.  Each person that is successful get a chip. The team with the most chips in the end wins.
  3. Similar to # 2 above. Use the fraction spinner. Find the correct denominator and then put the right amount of beans on the pie to make the fraction. Success is rewarded with a chip.
  4. It’s also great to have the kids sit around it and use it to talk about fractions.  Use it to talk about equivalent fractions.  Ask questions like: Can you make a fraction equivalent to ½? What do you need to look for?
  5. Use it for comparing fractions because again it’s a great visual.  Which of these is greater? 
  6. Also use it to demo addition of fractions and why the denominator needs to be the same.  They can then see visually why it doesn’t work it add pieces of a pie unless the pieces are the same size.

Spinner

 

Fringo

Items Need: A deck of fringo cards generated in Excel and call tiles.

Purpose: To help kids develop competency with identifying equivalent fractions.

Instructions: Play like bingo.  Draw a tile and call out the tile for example: F 1/3.  The students then can put markers on any tile under F that is equivalent to 1/3.

Template: Fringo cards

 

Fraction Pictionary

Items Needed:  Deck of fraction cards (make any fractions you would like) and small deck of  four faces of fractions cards: part of a whole, part of a collection, another way to write division, number line.

Purpose: To develop understanding of fractions as parts of unit wholes, as parts of a collection, as locations on number lines, and as divisions of whole numbers as required by national standards.

Instructions: Place both decks upside down. Divide into teams. Select one person from each team to be the first person who draws.  Select a card from the deck fraction cards and one card from the four face of fraction deck.  Whatever four faces card they draw determines the way in which they must represent the fraction. All teams then compete to be the first to guess the fraction from the artwork drawn by their own team mate. When representing the number line they can put whole numbers and popular fractions on the number line but they cannot write the actual value of their fraction.

Template:  Fraction Pictionary Cards --these are the four faces of fractions cards

Word 2003 Version

 

 

Capture the Villain

Items Needed: Deck of Villain Cards and Deck of Superhero Cards

Purpose: Use models, and equivalent forms to judge the size of fractions.

Instructions: Deal out superhero cards. Three cards for each player is good. Place villain cards face down in the middle. Extra superhero cards are also facedown in the middle.

One villain card is turned over. All players then select one of their cards that is larger than the villain card and place it face down in front of them. When everyone has placed a card face down in front of them all card are then turned over. The player with the largest fraction, that is greater than the villain card, captures the villain.  Players then all draw one more superhero card. Whomever captures the most villains by the end of the game wins. 

Template: Villain and Superhero Cards (Hit F9 to get a new page of cards--see all three tabs. Please be aware that I added descriptive words below the pies but Excel automatically reduces fractions so 4/10 automatically become 2/5)

 

The Right Ball Park

Items Needed: One ball for each team, one set of labels for each team of students. One label for each student. If working with whole number estimation, labels will be: Ones, Tens, Hundreds, Thousands, Ten Thousands, etc. If working with fractions labels will be: 0 answer < 1, 1 ≤  answer < 2, 2 ≤  answer < 3, etc.

Purpose: Tell your students that the purpose of this activity is to determine what is reasonable not to try and calculate the actual answer.

Instructions: This, arriving at the right ball park, is the first step of estimating and often all the students need to do when checking their work. They simply need to determine where on our infinite number line the answer lies. It is in the ones from 1 to 9 or the tens from 10 to 99, etc.   

Have them get into groups and give everyone in their group a different ball park label. You will then bring up one problem at a time. Their job is to pass the ball to the person in their group whose label reflects the right ball park for the answer. When that person gets the ball they need to hold the ball up over their head, and when called on, they need to explain why they arrived at that answer.

 

Let's Make a Deal

Items Needed: Two decks of cards one with fractions and one with decimals.

Purpose: To give kids fun lessons in converting and comparing fractions and decimals.

Instructions: Divide the kids into teams.  The teacher can be Monte.  The teacher will have a team draw from a deck of decimal cards.  They can be represented as money or not.  For example: $.25.  Monte will then say.  I will offer you 1/2 of a dollar for your $.25.  The team then needs to decide if it's a good trade or not.  If they don't want to trade any other team can trade for the same amount. After they decide the teacher then goes to the next team.  The team with the most money at the end wins. 

Templates: Fraction Cards and Decimal Cards Please modify the cards to make the fractions and decimals that best fit your lesson plans.

One of These Things

Items Needed: Powerpoint of different fractions and/or decimals where one of the items on the slide is not equivalent.  Kids can make the slides for each other.

Purpose: To give kids fun lesson in working with equivalent fractions and/or comparing fractions and decimals.

Instructions: Show the students a Powerpoint slide where one of the items is not equivalent to the other 3. Like the game on Sesame Street have them guess which one.

Template: One of These Things

 

The Borrowing Play

Items Needed: Bread sticks—I used bundles of straws.  Put straws in bundles of 10. (I used blue painters tape because it can easily be taken off.) Then put 10 of these bundles of 10 into a bundle of 100. I used a wax stick to make the 100 bundle. Gives this bundle to the hundred piggy digit.    Labels for each of the pigs and wolfs, can also make noses for each character or other costumes.  Sign that Says: It’s Borrowing Time

Purpose: By acting out borrowing students will gain a point of reference for the subtraction borrowing procedures.

Instructions: Put the following play on the big screen so characters can see their lines. Lines are minimal except for the narrator. Borrowing Play

Word 2003 Version

 

Straw Dividing Race

Items Needed:

·      Straws in bundles of 10 –bundles of 10 straws connected by blue painters tape so they can easily be taken off.

·     Straws in bundles of 100 –10 bundles of 10 in one bundles. I put a wax stick around the 100 bundles so they can be easily taken apart

·     Some individual straws not in bundles.

·     All these straws will be put in a baggie.

If available can use a cup stacking timer and board.

Purpose: To help them to understand the procedures for long division.

Instructions:

  1. This is similar to cup stacking. Two people competing against each other are both given a baggie full of straws and a problem. When the timer starts the participants must withdraw the right amount of straws from the baggie and then proceed to divide the straw into the correct amount of piles noted by the divisor.
  2. For example with 213 ÷ 5. After the teacher says go each participant would quickly take out 2 bundles of 100, one bundle of 10 and three individual ones. To divide the 213 by 5 the students would each take apart the hundreds bundles. (This is because two bundles can’t be divided by 5 people.) They have 21 bundles of ten. (20 from the 2 bundles of hundred + 1 existing ten.)
  3. They would then divide these 21 bundles equally among five piles (Five piles because we are dividing by 5.) They would create five piles on the table and count out the bundles like they are dealing out cards. One for you, one for you, etc. until all the bundles of 10 are counting out equally among the  five piles. (Each stack must have the same amount of groups of 10 so there will be one left over ten.)
  4.  The one bundle of 10 would then be unwrapped and the ones (10 + 3 = 13) would then be equally distributed among the five piles. With a remainder of 3. The end would show five piles. Each pile would have 4 bundles of 10, 2 individual ones and the remainder of 3 would be at the end. The student would then yell done or hit the buzzer.

 

Math Games by Cathy

Math Place Value Concentration

Musical Chairs

Fraction Twister

Fringo

Fraction Pictionary

Capture the Villain

Right Ball Park

Let's Make a Deal

One of These Things

The Borrowing Play

Straw Dividing Race

 

 

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This site was last updated 09/01/11