Back to those games!

Here's a game that you can play at home to help with learning facts.

Fact War
Rules:
Shuffle the cards. Deal an equal number of cards to each player. Each player keeps his or her stack of cards face down. The youngest player goes first. The player flips 2 cards and adds them. Next, player 2 flips 2 cards and adds them.
All face cards and aces equal 10. The player whose fact yields the highest answer takes the cards.
If both facts yield the same value then each player puts 3 cards face down and flips over another 2 cards. The player with the fact that yields the greatest answer wins all of the cards.
The player with the most cards when time is up is the winner.
Advanced Play: Instead of adding, multiply the 2 cards.

Guess If You Can
Let your child think of a number between a stated range of numbers while you try to guess the number by asking questions. Here is a sample conversation:
Child: I am thinking of a number between 1 and 100.
Parent: Is it more than 50?
Child: No.
Parent: Is it an even number?
Child: No.
Parent: Is it more than 20 but less than 40?
Child: Yes.
Parent: Can you reach it by starting at zero and counting by 3's?
Child: Yes.
(At this stage, your child could be thinking of 21, 27, 33, or 39.)
Figure out the answers to your own questions.
After you have guessed your child's number, let your child guess a number from you by asking similar questions.

What Are My Chances?
What you'll need: Two coins, paper, and pencil to keep score
Directions:
1)   Flip one coin. Every time it comes up heads, your child gets 1 point. Every time it comes up tails, you get 1 point. Flip it 50 times. Tally by 5's to make it easier to keep track of scores. The person with the most points wins. If one person has 10 points more than the other person does, score an extra 10 points. Does this happen very often? Why not?
2)   Flip two coins. If the coins come up two tails or two heads, your child scores 1 point. If it comes up heads and tails, you get 1 point. After 50 flips, see who has more points. Do you think the game is fair? What if one person received 2 points for every double heads and the other person received 1 point for everything else. Is this fair?
3)   Flip one coin. Then flip the other. If the second coin matches the first coin, your child scores 1 point. If the second coin doesn't match the first coin, you receive 1 point. Try this 50 times. Is the result the same as in the previous game?

Here are some games that you might have in your closet that are fun and good for reinforcing math concepts:
Addition, Subtraction and Counting Skills
Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, Connect Four, Hi Ho! Cherry-O, Sorry, Uno
Patterns, Attributes, Shapes and Geometry
Crazy Eights, Guess Who?, Rummikub, Tangrams, Jigsaw Puzzles
Strategy, Reasoning, and Spatial Perception
Mastermind, Battleship

Have fun!

Principal