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In this article for teachers, Liz Woodham describes the criteria she uses to choose mathematical games for the classroom and shares some examples from NRICH.
Not all of us a bursting with creative game ideas, but there are several ways to go about creating a game that will assist even the busiest and most reluctant game designer.
This article supplies teachers with information that may be useful in better understanding the nature of games and their role in teaching and learning mathematics.
Gillian Hatch analyses what goes on when mathematical games are used as a pedagogic device.
This article, the second in the series, looks at some different types of games and the sort of mathematical thinking they can develop.
Basic strategy games are particularly suitable as starting points for investigations. Players instinctively try to discover a winning strategy, and usually the best way to do this is to analyse. . . .
A game for 1 or 2 people. Use the interactive version, or play with friends. Try to round up as many counters as possible.
A game for 2 or more people. Starting with 100, subratct a number from 1 to 9 from the total. You score for making an odd number, a number ending in 0 or a multiple of 6.
A game for 1 person to develop stategy and shape and space awareness. 12 counters are placed on a board. Counters are removed one at a time. The aim is to be left with only 1 counter.
The game uses a 3x3 square board. 2 players take turns to play, either placing a red on an empty square, or changing a red to orange, or orange to green. The player who forms 3 of 1 colour in a line. . . .
This is a game for 2 players. Each player has 4 counters each, and wins by blocking their opponent's counters. A good follow-on from two stones.
Players take it in turns to choose a dot on the grid. The winner is the first to have four dots that can be joined to form a square.
The aim of the game is to slide the green square from the top right hand corner to the bottom left hand corner in the least number of moves.
A game for two players on a large squared space.
A card pairing game involving knowledge of simple ratio.
A game for 1 person. Can you work out how the dice must be rolled from the start position to the finish? Play on line.
A shape and space game for 2,3 or 4 players. Be the last person to be able to place a pentomino piece on the playing board. Play with card, or on the computer.
A Sudoku with clues given as sums of entries.
Solve this Sudoku puzzle whose clues are in the form of sums of the numbers which should appear in diagonal opposite cells.
An interactive game to be played on your own or with friends. Imagine you are having a party. Each person takes it in turns to stand behind the chair where they will get the most chocolate.
Reasoning based on this Japanese activity.
A game for 2 people that can be played on line or with pens and paper. Combine your knowledege of coordinates with your skills of strategic thinking.
A game to make and play based on the number line.
An interactive activity for one to experiment with a tricky tessellation
Match the halves.
Use the tangram pieces to make our pictures, or to design some of your own!
Who said that adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing couldn't be fun?
There are nasty versions of this dice game but we'll start with the nice ones...
A game that tests your understanding of remainders.
Advent Calendar 2010 - a mathematical game for every day during the run-up to Christmas.
Unmultiply is a game of quick estimation. You need to find two numbers that multiply together to something close to the given target - fast! 10 levels with a high scores table.
Here are a collection of games from around the world to try during the holidays or the last few weeks of term.
You'll need two dice to play this game against a partner. Will Incey Wincey make it to the top of the drain pipe or the bottom of the drain pipe first?
Design your own scoring system and play Trumps with these Olympic Sport cards.
The computer starts with all the lights off, but then clicks 3, 4 or 5 times at random, leaving some lights on. Can you switch them off again?
Here is a version of the game 'Happy Families' for you to make and play.
Can you make the birds from the egg tangram?
Take it in turns to make a triangle on the pegboard. Can you block your opponent?
A train building game for 2 players.
Take it in turns to place a domino on the grid. One to be placed horizontally and the other vertically. Can you make it impossible for your opponent to play?
Work out the fractions to match the cards with the same amount of money.
A complicated game played on a 9 x 9 checkered grid.
A shunting puzzle for 1 person. Swop the positions of the counters at the top and bottom of the board.
A game for 2 players. Can be played online. One player has 1 red counter, the other has 4 blue. The red counter needs to reach the other side, and the blue needs to trap the red.
A game for 2 players. Take turns to place a counter so that it occupies one of the lowest possible positions in the grid. The first player to complete a line of 4 wins.
An ordinary set of dominoes can be laid out as a 7 by 4 magic rectangle in which all the spots in all the columns add to 24, while those in the rows add to 42. Try it! Now try the magic square...
Play this well-known game against the computer where each player is equally likely to choose scissors, paper or rock. Why not try the variations too?
This article for teachers describes several games, found on the site, all of which have a related structure that can be used to develop the skills of strategic planning.
A game for 2 people. Take turns placing a counter on the star. You win when you have completed a line of 3 in your colour.
How good are you at estimating angles?