Get Out Of My House – 1 More/Less
The setup
Use a deck of cards with numbers from 1 to 10. On a shared piece of paper, have boxes, or simple drawings of houses, numbered from 0 to 11. To provide practice figuring out order, do not put these boxes in order on the page. Each player has 7 tokens distinct from the other player’s tokens – using different colors is one way to do this.
How to play
On a turn, a player picks a card and puts their token in any house that is one more or one less, as long as it does not have 3 or more of the other player’s tokens in it already. If the house has one or two of the opponent’s tokens, those are given back to the opponent and the player says “Get out of my house.”
How to win
The first player to place all their tokens wins.
Variations
- For a child not ready for numerals, use Number Cards and boxes with quantities of dots.
- Use a smaller or larger range of Number Cards and boxes.
- Allow moves to houses that are 2 numbers more or less.
Helping your child
First and foremost, playing math games should be fun, like any other game your family plays together!
Please let your child make poor plays (mistakes) without correction, and resist the urge to tell them the best ways to play. Bit by bit, your child will get better at the game, and they will learn so much more if you let them figure things out. There is no hurry.
If you see your child make a mistake, ask them to describe why they decided to do what they did. If your child is stuck and doesn’t know which play to make, ask them to describe the pros and cons of their choices, or ask them about how they solved a similar situation in the past. If your child doesn’t remember how to do a calculation, discuss with them the methods they know for figuring it out. These conversations are important for helping your child to develop mathematically.
Through math game play and math conversations, you are helping your child learn to enjoy math and develop important problem solving skills!