Fill In The Blanks Comparison
The setup
Shuffle a deck of playing cards with the numbers 1 to 9.
How to play
Deal two cards to each player face down. Then, each player turns over one card and decides whether that card will be the tens or ones card. After deciding, each player’s remaining card is turned over and is used to fill the remaining place.
How to win
The player with the larger number wins.
Variations
- Play that the smaller number wins.
- Decide whether it is more dramatic to show the cards as they are turned over, or wait until all the decisions are made and the final numbers are formed.
- Deal three cards to each player and let the players choose which one to put aside.
- To practice a bit of addition, as well as making the decisions trickier, draw three cards to turn over one at a time to form a two-digit number and a single-digit number. The goal is to create the largest sum of the two numbers.
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!