Use Arithmetic Skills in Games and Activities

You can help the learner use arithmetic in simple, fun activities, and common games. Try these suggestions:

Make These Things
Play Thinking Games With Numbers
Use Playing Cards
Play Games with Game Board Dice

You can make or use many household items to play games that require number recognition and naming, counting, and using arithmetic operations. Here are a few ideas:

Flash Cards
Flash cards can be useful to drill and practice number facts. Use note cards or pieces of paper of the same size. Write a simple problem on the front, and the answer on the back. Learners can practice being able to say the answer as soon as they see the problem. Check the answer on the back.

Price Tags
Put price tags on items in a room. Add up the cost of different combinations of items. Tell the difference in price between two items. Tell what it would cost to buy multiples of any item (If one chair is 47 dollars, how much would 23 chairs cost?). Pretend you have a set amount of money and tell if you could buy a certain number of any item (I have ten dollars. Can I buy 5 of this item that costs two dollars?).

Floating Numbers
Use Styrofoam meat packing trays or plates to cut out numbers that will float in a tub, or sink or pool. Randomly float and move the numbers around so you can:

Choose any two numbers and tell: what they add up to; the difference between the two numbers; the product of multiplying the numbers; whether one number is divisible by another, and if so, the result.

Line up any combination of numbers to make a two, three, or four digit number (for example 12, 547, 3089) and tell: what numbers you could add, subtract, multiply or divide to arrive at that number.

Plastic Bottle Timer
Put a small hole in the cap of a plastic bottle. Fill the bottle with water and turn it upside down and place it in a glass. As the water drips into the glass, count how many drips there are in a minute, or in five minutes. Use that number to calculate how many drips there are in an hour, four hours, a whole day, and so on. Put lines for measuring at equal intervals on the outside of the bottle. Figure out how long it takes to reach the first line, then calculate when it will reach the next line, and how much time is left to empty the bottle.

Egg Cartons
You can use egg cartons to hold small objects such as gravel, noodles, shells, rice, beans and so on. Put different numbers of objects in each, or some, of the holders, and add up the total by counting what is in each holder. Tell how many you would have to take away to arrive at a different set total. Tell what the total would be if you took away the items in certain of the holders. Put an even number in each, or some, of the holders, and multiply to find out the total number of items. Take a larger number of items and divide it evenly amongst the holders, after first predicting how many holders you can divide the group into evenly.

Goal Number
Set a goal number. Use smaller numbers if you are working on beginning skills, use larger numbers if you are working on later skills. Figure out what numbers it would take to multiply, add, divide, or subtract to come up with that number. For example:

The goal is 500. What numbers can I add to get to 500?
The goal is 250, what two numbers can I multiply to get 250?

Pre-Algebra
You can start practicing solving problems in the form of equations. An equation is a sentence with an equals sign, such as X + 3 = 10. To solve the equation, you need to determine the number to put in the sentence in place of the variable (X). In this example X=7. You can start thinking about combinations of numbers this way. For example:

What number do I need to add to 3 to get 10?
What number do I need to take away from 20 to get 10?
What number do I multiply by 4 to get 60?
What number do I divide 750 by to get 15?

Codes
Assign numbers to letters then determine the sum of different names, or words. Whose name has the biggest sum? Whose name has the smallest sum? Who can think of a word with the biggest sum?

For example: a=1, b=2, c= 3, ...and so on. Abigail =?

Guessing Games
You can play various guessing games (like 20 questions) with numbers. One player thinks of a number in a given range, and the other players ask questions to guess what the number is. Whoever guesses the number is the next one to think of a number. For example:

I am thinking of number between 100 and 1000.
Is it bigger than 200?
Can it be divided by 68?
Is it more than 400 but less than 500?
Is it a multiple of 10?

Cards offer many opportunities for number games. You can easily think of activities to do with the number cards 2-10, and adapt activities to giving any value you choose to the face cards. The following are just a few examples of activities using arithmetic:

Pick A Card
Many activities can be done by having players draw cards and perform different activities with the numbers. For example:

Draw cards and tell who has more( bigger number) or who has less (smaller number). The player with more, tells how many more and gets that as a score. Keep the score, and add up the points. A variation would be to decide that the winner is the one who has less and keep track of how many less.

Draw 2 cards tell the difference between the two numbers.
Draw 2 cards and tell the sum.
Draw 2 cards and tell the product of one number multiplied by the other.

Each player draws two cards (or any number of cards). Present different challenges, such as:

Who can make the largest combination?
Who can make the smallest combination?
Who can make a number divisible by 3 (4, 5, etc..)?
Who can make their age?
What players can combine their cards to make largest or smallest numbers?

Players can decide whether to use addition, subtraction, multiplication or division to reach these numbers.

Draw a set number of cards (3-5). Players try to make the largest number they can, or the smallest number, just by setting the cards out in a certain order. For example: 23456, 65432, 54326 and so on. To make this activity require using operations, players could try to make a number that is divisible by a certain number (or a number that could be subtracted from 4000, a number that is a multiple of 8, etc. ).

Each player draws a set number of cards. For an easy start draw 2-3 cards, progress to more cards for harder challenges. See how many different numbers each player can make combining the different cards by using addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division, or even by combining the operations, and telling the answers. For example, if a player draws a 2 and a 6, some of the combinations would be: 2+6 = 8; 6-2=4; 6*2=12; 6/2=3 and so on. The winner is the one who can make the most combinations..

Go For a Goal Number
Many activities can be done by setting goal numbers and having players try to reach the goal by different combinations of numbers and operations. For example:

Set a goal number, such as 15. Players take turns drawing cards. The winner is the first to get cards whose sum is 15. A variation would be to set a number of cards, for example, the first player to get three cards that add up to 15. Another variation would be to multiply numbers to reach the goal number.

Set a goal number between 20 and 100. Have each player draw 4-8 cards depending on how large the goal number is, and how many numbers you want to add. Each player adds the cards they drew. The person whose total is closest to the goal wins. A variation of this is that each player can decide whether to count the card as a counter for ones or a counter for tens. That is, a 2 could count as a 2, or as 20. So if a player drew two 2s it could count as 2 + 2, or 20 + 2, or 20 + 20. Another variation would be to multiply the numbers instead of adding them.

Start with a large goal number. Players take turns drawing cards. Each turn subtract numbers on the cards drawn from the goal number. The winner is the first player to get to 0.

Make a list of numbers, such as 1,2,3,.. - 15, for each player. Each player tries to cross off the numbers on his list, and the first one to cross off all numbers wins the game. Each player chooses two cards (or more) and adds the value of the cards. The player can then cross off the number of the sum, or any combination of numbers that adds up to that sum. For example if a player chooses a 6 and a 4, the sum is 10. The player could cross off a 10, or a 6 and a 4, or a 7 and 3, or 1,2,3, and 4. Face cards can have a value of 1 or 10, at the playerŐs choice. For variation make a list of bigger numbers to cross off. Another variation would be that the player can combine the numbers using any operation to arrive at numbers to cross off the list.

Throw the dice and say the sum of the numbers added, or the difference between the numbers, or the product of the two numbers multiplied, or whether one number is divisible by the other and if so what is the answer.

Throw more than 2 dice, to add more than two numbers.

Tell what the number is that results when you multiply the total of the dice by a set number. For example: What is three times the roll of the dice, if the dice show a 2 and a 3? (15).

When playing a game let every body get two times (three times, etc.) the throw of the dice.

When playing a game, calculate how many you must throw to land on a particular spot. Tell what combination of dice would give you that number (2+4, 3+3, 5+1).