Math Games

Archive for July, 2010

Question: Arghh. Homework Helppppppppp?

I have to make a Math game (ie; boardgame, cardgame, whatever.) and it has to be at seventh grade level, which is mostly decimals, negative and positive numbers, multiplying, and dividing.

I have no clue what to do for the game. It has to be creative..

I really hate asking for this kind of stuff, but does anyone have any ideas?

Answer: You could have a path to follow, as in that old favorite Candy Land.

On each turn, the player gets a problem to solve from some cards.

Either have cards with complete problems on them,
or separate cards with numbers and other cards with operations.
Or just cards with numbers, and you can use whatever operations you want.

The player either solves the problem or says "No solution".
If the other players agree, then the player wins the turn,
otherwise he loses the turn.

Winning the turn means advancing along the path, by an amount
determined by spinning a spinner or rolling dice (or maybe just one die).
Losing the turn means going back, by an amount similarly determined.

You could make it that more difficult problems are worth more spaces
to advance (and less to go back), and easier problems the other way around.

First one to reach the finish line wins the game.

If you wanted to make it more elaborate, you could make some of the places
on the path special in some way (extra rewards, penalties, or what have you).

Interactive maths games - Middle primary from RIC Publications

Question: This is a hard math question?

"Euchre is a popular card game played with a partial deck of ordinary cards. Only 24 cards are used: the 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, and Ace of each suit (hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs). Consider the experiment of drawing cards from a Euchre deck until a club is drawn. After each draw the card is replaced and the deck is shuffled." Then it asks "complete the table below for a theoretical probability distribution for the number of draws to get a club. The first column in the table reads "number of draws to get first club" and the values are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or more i'm supposed to find the probability for each value.

Answer: For every draw, there are 6 clubs out of 24 so the prob of drawing a club is 1/4.
And since you put back the card you drew, it remains 1/4.

P(first draw) = 1/4
P(second draw) = (3/4)*(1/4) (it's a 3/4 prob you didn't draw a club the first time)
P(third draw) = (3/4)^2*(1/4) (it's a (3/4)^2 prob you didn't draw a club the first and 2nd times)

In general, P(on draw n) = (3/4)^(n-1)*(1/4)

Math Fluency pt.2: Math Games