Fill In The Blanks Revisited
The setup
Shuffle a deck of playing cards with the numbers 1 to 9. Decide on which version of this game to play and make a game board for each person. One person is designated the dealer.
The game boards can be as simple as two blanks to fill in to form 2-digit numbers. In this case the winner is the person with the largest number (or the smallest number, if you prefer). You can have zero, one, or two discard blanks for numbers not to be used.
More complicated game boards can involve one or more 2-digit, 3-digit, or 4-digit numbers. The task may be to add up the numbers, or perhaps to take their difference. For adding, you might want to maximize the sum without going over some agreed upon limit. For subtracting, you might want it to be as small as possible without going below 0. There are a large number of possibilities which give you many ways to practice skills.
How to play
The dealer draws random cards one at a time. The players decide where on their game board they will use that number. After deciding, the placement of that number cannot be changed for the remainder of the game.
How to win
When the game boards are filled, the player who does the best job of achieving the objective 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!