Thanks to Michael Ymer again for this game suitable for students from Year 1 to Year 6.

For this activity each pair will need a deck of cards and two game boards that can be pre made or quickly drafted up on scrap paper. The game board needs to have enough room to lay three or more cards out side by side. It needs to be labelled units, tens, hundreds etc. Game boards can be made and laminated.

Two students place a deck of cards in front of them face down. Remove the Kings, Jacks, Tens and Jokers. The Ace represents the number one and the Queen represents a zero. All other cards are face value.

Students take it in turn selecting a card at a time and placing it in one of the columns on their game board. The objective is to make the biggest possible number. Once a student decides to place a card in a column it cannot be changed. Children need to read the number out as it is progressively being built. Teachers may wish to assess a student’s ability to read numbers by asking him/her to press a number on the calculator and read it. If successful press another and so on. This will tell you if a child can read 2, 3, or more digit numbers and can help pair students appropriately. Allow children to play game one digit further than they can read so that learning can be extended.

Variations….smallest numbers, largest odd, using more or less than three columns. decimals.