Eleven: Fun Card Game for Practicing Math Facts to 20

Eleven - Fun Card Game for Math Facts

"Eleven" is my favorite card game to help students practice addition and subtraction facts up to 20. It's for any number of players, and all you need is a deck of cards.

Setup

Remove the face cards and jokers. Count aces as one. Shuffle the cards and place them in a pile face down. 

Procedure

The goal of the game is to reach the number 11 exactly by adding and subtracting the value of drawn cards. The first player draws the top card and places it face down next to the  pile, saying  the number on the card. The next player draws a card, adds the two cards' values, says the sum of the two cards as a number sentence and places the drawn card on top of the pile. The next player draws and adds the number of the newly drawn card to the previous sum. Play continues until the total reaches 11.  If the sum exceeds 11, then players subtract the number on the drawn card from the total, and state the difference as a subtraction sentence. Play continues until the sum or difference is exactly 11. If you want to keep score, the player whose card makes exactly 11 gets the whole pile of cards.

A typical game might go like this.

First turn: With a 3 showing, player draws a 4 and says, "Three plus four equals seven."

Second turn: Player draws an 8 and says, "Seven plus eight equals fifteen" (This is more than 11, so the next player subtracts.)

Third turn: Player draws a 3 and says, "Fifteen minus three equals twelve."

Fourth turn: Player draws an 8 and says, "Twelve minus eight equals four."

Fifth turn: Player draws a 7 and says, "Four plus seven equals eleven!" This player takes all of the cards and play resumes again with a new card drawn.

There's nothing magical about the number 11. If you want to practice math facts with bigger numbers, you can play 21, 50, 100 or whatever number you want.

Questions or comments? They are welcome below.

Fun Card Game for Place Value

I was recently asked how to teach place value. One fun way to teach about place value is through a variation of the old card game, War. You'll remember that in War, the deck is dealt evenly to all players, the players players flip one card face-up simultaneously, and the player with the highest card takes the other cards. This continues until one player has all the cards.

In Place Value War, which I adapted from a Singapore Math teacher's manual, each player has a place value mat or piece of paper with thousands, hundreds, tens, and ones, written on it. Follow this procedure to play.

Click for a printable PDF version of this Place Value Chart

1. Deal all the cards face down. (I recommend using an UNO deck rather than regular playing cards because the UNO deck has zeroes and the ones are proper ones, not aces.)
2. Players simultaneously flip one of their cards face-up, decide where to place it on their chart, and state their choices. ("Seven hundreds" or "three ones.")
3. Continue until all places on the paper are filled, then each player says the number that is on his paper.  ("Seven thousand, five hundred, twenty-three.")
4. The player with the highest 4-digit number wins the round and takes the other players cards.
5. Continue play until one player has all of the cards.

This game naturally teachers place value because players soon realize that, for example, a 3 in the hundreds place is  greater than a 9 in the tens place. Unlike regular War, Place Value War includes strategic thinking about probability. ("Should I place a six in the thousands place on my first draw or hope for a higher number?")

Of course you can adjust the game to include more or fewer places on the paper. To increase the suspense, I sometimes have the players take turns instead of flipping cards simultaneously. Enjoy the game, make up your own rules, and share your experiences or suggestions in the comments.

You may also be interested in How to Teach Math with UNO.

Salute: Quick, Fun Card Game to Practice Math Number Bonds

It's back-to-school time and children's math skills have become rusty. Try Salute, a quick, fun card game to practice math fact families, sometimes called number bonds. It's a game for three: a caller and two saluters. The caller deals cards out face down to the two saluters. When the caller says, "Salute," the saluters each pick up a card without looking at it and hold it face out on their foreheads. The caller looks at the cards and calls out the sum (or the product if you want your students to review muliplication/division fact families). The first saluter to say the card that is on his or her own forehead wins the round. Students can review a lot of math facts quickly with this game, and they are quick to confirm each other's accuracy.

Salute can be played with regular playing cards by treating aces as ones and either considering face cards as tens or culling them out of the deck. I prefer to play it with Uno cards, because the numbers are more prominent and there is no counting of hearts, clubs, spades or diamonds. Just cull the reverses, skips, and wilds.

Salute with Uno Cards

For more math card games, check out How to Teach Math with UNO.

Question: Other than worksheets, how do you practice math facts with your students?

Catch the Match: Fun Pattern-Recognition Game for All Ages

Catch The Match is a deceptively simple card game that develops observation, pattern recognition, memory, and concentration skills. In the  box are 15 sturdy, colorful cards, each with pictures of the same 15 objects. The objects are in different places on each card and the colors (red, yellow, blue, and green) are mixed around. Any two cards has one and only one pair of the same object in the same color. The goal is to be the first to match that pair.

As a parent and educator, here's what I love about Catch The Match:

• Everyone plays all the time. Unlike other memory games, there is no taking turns. All players have an opportunity to make a match at any moment.

• Age doesn't matter. In my family, our nine- and eleven-year-olds hold their own against their mom and me. Our four-year-old, is less likely to be the first to make a match than the rest of us, but he still enjoys the game.

• It's fun for preliterate or ESL players. No reading or vocabulary skills are required. In fact, players who speak different languages, can learn some new vocabulary words.

• The rules are easy to adapt. Adjust the competition level by playing in teams or deciding whether or not to keep score. Add difficulty by matching items with opposite colors  (a blue airplane with red wings matches a red airplane with blue wings). You can even play Catch the Match alone against the clock.

A game similar to this one but more complex is SET, which I haven't played yet, but would like to.

Question: What is your top pattern-recognition activity for kids?

Blink - Fun Card Game for Learning

My oldest child received "Blink - The World's Fastest Card Game" for his tenth birthday last year. It sat on a shelf for a while, but we recently started playing it and have gotten hooked. Like it says on the box, Blink takes less than two minutes to play, so it's perfect for those in-between times.

From the product description on amazon.com:

This game is a clever variation on the classic card game, Spit. As cards are turned face up on the table, you must try to get rid of the cards in your draw pile by matching at least one characteristic on the card (color, shape, or count). These cards are colorfully designed with stars, moons, triangles, and more. You can only have three cards in your hand at one time, but may continue to pick cards from your draw pile as soon as you discard. Includes 60 Symbol cards and instructions. 

Educational Benefits of Blink Card Game
As a teacher, here's what I like.

• Children have to think about three attributes of their cards, color, shape, and count.

• It's great for working memory. Players need to keep in mind the attributes of their cards and the the ones on top of the discard pile.

• Children learn to make quick decisions under pressure, but the pressure is harmless.

• Unlike a regular deck of playing cards, if you lose a few it doesn't really matter.

• It's easy to handicap the faster players to keep the game competitive; just deal them more cards than the slower players.

More Card Games for Learning

Read about how to teach math with UNO.