Games for Educators

Math Concepts

Single-digits with all four operations

Materials

Dice or Playing cards for teacher

Players

Whole class

Set up

Have a place, such as a whiteboard, for the teacher to write things down. The students may want paper or some other surface for writing things down.

Play

Create random numbers with dice or playing cards. I’ll assume you are using dice. Start by creating a two-digit target number. Roll a die once for the tens digit, and then roll it again for the ones digit. If you need to use smaller numbers, roll for the tens digit until you are within your range.

Next, create five one-digit numbers. You can either roll a group of five dice once, or you can roll one die five times. In either event, write the five digits on the board.

The challenge is to use any operation, including forming two-digit numbers, to use all five digits to get as close as possible to the target number. If your students are not comfortable with multiplication and division yet, then restrict the operations to addition and subtraction.

For example, suppose the roll is: 4, 4, 3, 1, 3 and 22. One player might get 4 + 4 + 3 + 1 + 3 = 15. Another player might use 14 + 4 +3+3 = 24. Someone else might have 34 – 14+3 = 23. If you allow multiplication, then 4 x 4 + 3 x 1 + 3 = 22 or (3 – 1) x (4 + 4 + 3) = 22 workout exactly.

Goal

Be the first to find the solution, or find the closest solution.