Bobbi Fessler Win-Win Math Games

Bobbi Fessler Literature Review

Title – Win-Win Math Games

Author – Marilyn Burns

Source - http://www.mathsolutions.com/documents/winwin_mathgames.pdf

Summary:

Marilyn Burns teaches 4 awesome Math Games to enhance simple math skills and make math come alive to students. Here is a brief synopsis of each game:

1.       4 strikes you’re out

a.       Students guess your secret two digits by two digit addition problem. If they guess a number that is not in your problem they get a strike. If they guess all the numbers in your problem before they get 4 strikes they win.

2.       101 and out

a.       Students roll a dice six times and each time they either make it a ten or a one. They are trying to get to as close to 100 as possible. When they are finished rolling six times, they put zeros in any blank ones places and then they add their numbers together.

3.       Seven-up

a.       Students place seven cards face up. They then take out any tens or combinations of tens. When they remove a card they replace it with another card. When they can no longer make combinations of ten they place 7 new cards on top. The game is over when there are no more cards in the dealer pile.

4.       Target 300

a.       Students roll a dice six times. Each time they roll they decide what multiply of ten to times that number by. Their goal is to get to 300, they have to use all their turns.

5.       Marilyn gave some Math Game tips that I thought were interesting

1.       Choose games that are accessible to all students

2.       Play cooperatively and competitively

3.       Choose games that require reasoning and chance

4.       Teach the game to the entire class at the same time

5.       Start a Math games chart

Analysis:

I love this article. I have been trying to get my students to remember combinations of 10. I can’t wait to teach them 7 up. I also like the tip of making a Math Game Chart. I think this would be a great thing for my fast finisher to do. I have always liked Math Games and used in them in my instructions, but I never liked the idea of using them as a fast finisher, because all the games that I have are partner games. But two of these games can be played alone.