Need a new Game Night game? Try Operations Number Battle. All you need is a deck of cards and these directions:
- 2 Players
- Grades 8+
This is a variation of Number Battle that builds student fluency in operations with rational numbers including exponentiation and mathematical reasoning, revealing the relative impact of each operation on positive and negative operands.
PREPARING TO PLAY
- Shuffle the entire deck of cards.
- The Ace holds a value of 1, the Jack holds a value of 11, the Queen holds a value of 12, and the King holds a value of 13. Green suits represent negative integers and black suits represent positive integers.
- Decide how long the game will last and set a timer. Alternatively, play can continue until one player surrenders or until one player holds all the cards.
- Divide the cards evenly between the players. Each player keeps his cards in a single pile, face down.
- Consider keeping a calculator nearby for comparisons involving exponentiation with high card values.
PLAYING THE GAME
- Each player picks two cards off the top of his pile and places them face up in the middle of the playing area for all to see.
- Each player chooses any operation to use with his two cards – addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, or exponentiation – and computes the resulting value, aiming for the greatest possible value.
- If the two players have created expressions with equal value, a battle ensues – each player places four (or five) new cards to form a new expression of the greatest possible value. The player whose new expression has the greatest value collects all the cards in the playing area, placing them at the bottom of his own pile.
Winning the game The player who has the most cards at the end of the designated time period wins the game.