Games that Teach
You probably already incorporate games in your teaching. Games focus students’ attention as few other teaching
strategies can. The ones selected here deal directly with the math content covered in the middle grades. Each has
a learning objective; each could be embedded in a lesson plan. We believe that they will add to your store of games
that teach.
For work on fractions, this applet is a winner! It allows students to individually
practice working with relationships among fractions and ways of combining fractions. It helps them visualize
what is meant by equivalence of fractions. A link to an applet for two-person play is also given here.
(From
Illuminations, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Vision for School Mathematics -
MSP full record)
This excellent lesson uses a game to review and stimulate conversation about properties
of polygons. A player draws two cards, one about the sides of a polygon, such as "All sides are equal," and
one about the angles, such as "Two angles are acute." The player then captures all the polygons on the table that
fit both of the properties. Provided here are handouts of the game cards, the polygons, and the rules of the game.
(From
Illuminations, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Vision for School Mathematics -
MSP full record)
A two-player game that immerses students in factors! To play, one person circles
a number from 1 to 30 on a gameboard. The second person circles (in a different color) all the proper factors
of that number. The roles are switched and play continues until there are no numbers remaining with uncircled
factors. The person with the largest total wins. A lesson plan outlines how to help students analyze the best
first move in the game, which leads to class discussion of primes and squares as well as abundant and deficient
numbers. (From
Illuminations, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics Vision for School Mathematics -
MSP full record)
In this online one-person computer game, four planets are shown on a coordinate grid.
A player must pass through each on a journey through space. The player must find the coordinates of the four
planets and, finally, the equation of the line connecting them. Three levels of difficulty are available.
(This is one of 12 interactive games created by the
Maths File Games Show -
MSP full record)
This online version of the Towers of Hanoi puzzle features three spindles and a
graduated stack of two to eight discs, a number decided by the player, with the largest disc on the bottom.
The player must move all discs from the original spindle to a new spindle in the smallest number of moves
possible, while never placing a larger disc on a smaller one. The algebra learning occurs as the player
observes the pattern of number of discs to number of moves needed. Generalizing from this pattern,
students can answer the question: What if you had 100 discs? The final step is expressing the pattern
as a function.
MSP full record
Why the jam? There are seven stepping stones and six people. Three stand on the left-hand stones
and three on the right-hand; all face center. Everyone must move so that the people on the right and the people
on the left pass each other, eventually standing on the side opposite from where they started. But no two
people may stand on the same stone at the same time! This problem requires reasoning, but its solution also
reveals a pattern that leads to an algebraic expression. A lesson plan is provided.
MSP full record
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Copyright
December 2007 — The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work
supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0424671. Any
opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this
material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of
the National Science Foundation.
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This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.
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