@ Card Games in Math Class are useful activities for students. Page (1) @
Recently in the news it was reported, two of the most wealthy men in the world
Bill Gates and Warren Buffet play Bridge regularly. Warren plays 12 hrs a week.
They both proclaim playing any type of card game is healthy activity for the brain.
This has encouraged me to return to my roots in Basic Math,where I had students
on a regular basisplay a specific type of card game with a brief set of standard rules.
I would organize my students in groups of four with two doing well in Basic Math
andtwo being challenged with Basic Math. This arrangement work well for Team
Mates and many times the challenged Math students were the better card players.
After the games were played on a regular basis usually on Fridays, the challenged
students began to help the non-card playing team mates do better at playing cards
which lead them to accept help from the better Math students. They did not allow
any assistance in Math previously to playing cards, but, games made it acceptable.
First and foremost, the reason I thought card playing would be beneficial in Math
classes was as a young adult my parents and relatives whenever getting together,
played card games mainly Euchre and my brothers and sisters wanted to play too.
So playing cards was a natural pastime in our family. I continued as I became an
adult with playing more Euchre and later playing Bridge which I really loved!
Two card games to start with since many students are not really good at card games
was Hearts and Spades. These two card games were similar in rules but different
in the final result or achievement in winning the game. Hearts is a game where the
players try not to take cards from a trick (a card played by all four to the middle of
the table) while Spades was just the opposite where players tried to grab all cards.
Hearts is a card game where the low point player wins while Spades is a card game
where the high point player wins the game. Both games useoffensive and defensive
playing strategies which really call for team work and concentration on playing cards.
Keep in mind, Card games are a natural Mathematics environment since players are
provided with a set of elements and a specific set of rules and guides lines as to how
playing the game would lead to solving the problem which is winning the game.
Trying not to reinvent the wheel the link below is a good set of rules for Hearts:
These rules were modified and provided on a need to know basis to my students.
Again, not to reinvent the wheel the link below is a good set of rules for Spades:
These rules were modified and provided on a need to know basis to my students.
The Friday Game day usually was done after a short but regular quiz over the weeks
Math activities which included concepts and computation along with word problems.
Most of the time, (this means quite a few times) my students wanted me to allow them
to play poker since they considered it an acceptable adult game but I told them it was
not allow to bet with money so playing poker would be very boring and no win or lose.
@ Card Games in Math Class are useful activities for students. Page (2) @
After students became good or needing a change in their card playing activity,
I would introduce the two new card games with similar but different concepts.
The new games were Straight Rummy and Gin Rummy which required in a game
for players to try and get the highest number of points while the other the lowest.
These new card games only provided the players with 8 playing cards at the start.
Thenrequired them to interact with each other by drawing cards from a deck and
discarding cards into a discard pile which allow the next player a choice of either.
Trying not to reinvent the wheel the link below is a good set of rules for Rummy:
These rules were modified and provided on a need to know basis to my students.
Again, not to reinvent the wheel the link below is a good set of rules for Gin Rummy:
These rules were modified and provided on a need to know basis to my students.
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Again students become good or needing a change in their card playing activity,
I would introduce the two new card games with similar but different concepts.
The new games were Crazy 8s regular deck and UNO invented deck both games
had similar rules but the elements of the games were different causing a focus.
These new card games only provided the players with 8 playing cards at the start.
Thenrequired them to interact with each other by drawing cards from a deck and
discarding cards into a discard pile which allow the next player a choice of either.
Trying not to reinvent the wheel the link below is a good set of rules for Crazy 8s:
These rules were modified and provided on a need to know basis to my students.
Again, not to reinvent the wheel the link below is a good set of rules for Uno & 8s:
These rules were modified and provided on a need to know basis to my students.
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Advanced players could start playing Euchre and Two Deck Euchre but these were
more difficult games and required much more sophisticated playing strategies.
Reference: and
Thomas Love MaloneCollege / 21st Century Learning Solutions 2007/2008