Numerical Order - A Card Game

Deal out 3 - 10 cards to each player. 

Say "Go!"

Players place their cards in a row face-up on the table. 

Then players rearrange their cards, in order from lowest to highest (left to right). 

Because we are playing with limited numbers here, players may get duplicates or more of one number. Same numbers are placed on top of each other.

When a player has his cards in order, he shouts, "In Order!" and all players must stop. His cards are checked. If he has them correctly arranged, he scores 10 points for the round. If incorrect, he scores zero and all other players count their points.

Other player points are scored by starting at the left and giving one point for each card that is in correct order. When a misplaced card is reached, scoring ends. For example: If the player had out the numbers 1, 5, 7, 6, 9, 14, 15, 18, he would score 3 points for the first three cards are in correct order. Even though most of the rest of the cards are in correct order, scoring would end at the 6 which is incorrectly placed.

Play for 10 rounds (or any other agreed upon number of rounds) keeping a total of points scored.

VARIATIONS

1.  Deal 3 cards the first round, 4 the second, 5 the third and continue to 10 (or even 15) cards.

2. Use fractions, mixed numbers, decimals instead of whole numbers.

3. Have math facts on the cards. Arrange the cards by their correct answer.

4. Use much larger numbers, such as thousands, ten thousand, hundred thousands, or even millions.

5. Play with a scoring variation. If playing with fractions, give fractional points. (If there are six cards in play and a player completes the order, he would score one point. If he had 3 cards in order, he would score 3/6 or reduce it to 1/2. This would give the players some good practice in addition of fractions, especially if a different number of cards is dealt each time, thus giving different denominators.)  Get creative with the scoring for great math practice!

Presidents Mat Game

This was one of the easiest games I have ever made.  I bought two Melissa & Doug Presidents Write-a-Mat ($2.99 each at the local teachers store - however, I got a great deal on them as they were going out of business.)

I cut the Presidents apart on one of the mats.

We use the other mat as the playing board. The cut-up cards are placed in a bucket (here we just used a plastic butter tub).

 In turn a player draws one of the cards,

 

 reads the name of the President,

   and finds the match on the playing board.

 He then places one of his colored chip markers on the space.

 SCORING:

 We began thinking that we would play until one player had three in a row. However, I scored three (blue) together quite quickly and we wanted to continue. So we decided to see if it is possible to get 4, 5 or even 6 in a row. We would play until all the cards had been matched.

 Here Douglas (red) scores 4 in a row.

Here is how our final board looked. 

We decided a good scoring would be 3 points for every 3-in-a-row, 4 for each 4-in-a-row, and so on. Douglas ended up the winner by a couple points. 

This is a good game for becoming familiar with the Presidents and their order. It is slow-paced so it allows for comments, questions, and teaching. The winner is simply a matter of the luck of the draw, so the adult has no advantage over a child.

Homonyms - Pick a Pair

This is an easy to make and fun to play card game to learn, drill or master homonym pairs.

 The deck was made with blank playing cards purchased at a local teacher store. However, index cards cut in half would work perfectly. Make a list of homonym pair to be worked on. Write one word on each card. Cards could be laminated/covered with clear Contact paper after words are added, but they are so easy and inexpensive to make that I would not bother with this step.

To Play 

After the cards have been shuffled, place them in a draw pile between the players. In turn, a player draws a card, reads it out loud,  and looks for a match. If he finds no match, he simply places the card face-up so all players can see it.

 

 If the player finds a pair, he has to explain the meaning of both of the words. The boys often find this easiest to do by using the words in a sentence.

Charles collected "here" and "hear." He defined them by saying, "I am sitting here." and "I can hear lots of noise."

The boys enjoyed this fun game and I could easily watch what they were doing/saying and occasionally help out with a definition while still helping another child with their work.