There’s strategy in numbers! Challenge your first grader for the best score in this math game. Players take turns examining the cards and picking up the ones with largest value. Add up your cards to see who’s won!
This math game is a great way to improve critical thinking skills, which are necessary to succeed in math. Your child will use his knowledge of numeric value and combine it with strategy in order to win the game. Practice makes perfect, and this is definitely a game you'll be wanting to play again and again!
What You Need:
- Deck of playing cards (with face cards removed)
What You Do:
- Shuffle the deck. Arrange the cards face up in a 6 x 6 grid. Discard the remaining 4 cards.
- The first player picks up the highest possible card she can find.
- The second player then picks up the highest possible card that he can find.
- Continue picking up cards until there are none left.
- Each player adds up the total value of the cards they have collected. The player with the highest score wins.
You can also turn this game into a memory game. Arrange the cards in a grid where they are face down. Players will only be able to collect the cards in pairs after they've found two cards of the same value. Keeping the goal of a high score in mind, players can abandon trying to find a match for cards with low values until the very end, when those cards may be the only ones left.