WEEK FIFTEEN: 1/13

All of us started our first lesson on a new game today! Generally, on a first week we introduce concepts (through exploration and activities) that will be used when learning the game during a subsequent week. From www.mathpentath.org, here's the MATH we are learning behind all the fun!

DIV I: Kings & Quadraphages
Horizontal, vertical, and diagonal movement, which is the basis of many mathematics/ science concepts, is practiced in this simple, but challenging entrapment game. In addition, students experience a dynamic use of counting skills while exploring deductive thinking and the topology of open and closed regions. Students take turns placing a chip (referred to as a square-eating Quadraphage) on a grid-type gameboard and moving their pawn (the King) to entrap the opposing King.

DIV II: Ramrod
The game of Ramrod combines the ability to know all facts for each number family with strategic thinking. Cuisenaire rods and a gameboard that connects rectangular (sum) boxes composed of different metric lengths provide the setting for students’ active investigation of addition and subtraction, measurement, estimation, spatial reasoning, and inductive and deductive thought. In this game students must plan ahead to construct “RAMROD” (addend) combinations of two rods that complete a rectangular (sum) box length in the playing area of the gameboard. Such (addend) combinations result in captures that relate to the game goal of being the first to complete their 24 cm rectangular region of the gameboard. The ability to associate each of the colored rods with their corresponding number value facilitates students’ skill to mentally compute all of the facts for each number family represented on the gameboard.

DIV III: Stars & Bars
This multiple classification-logic game uses geometric attribute cards and a grid-type board to help students develop understanding of multi-variable relationships. For each play students try to maximize their scores by placing cards onto the gameboard and comparing them to adjacent cards that are one, two, three, or four-ways different. The horizontal, vertical, and diagonal placement of the cards onto the gameboard contributes to the development of logical, computational, and spatial thought.