I [teach] [math], 6th grade up through [Geometry]. I try to make it [fun]. The following are games I’ve made up, or adapted from commercially available versions, for use in my [classroom]. Feel free to [play]/ use/ further [adapt] these to suit your own needs, and check out http://www.incentivesforlearning.com/cat569_1.htm for the real Quizmo^TM games.

GEOMETRY [SIMON SAYS]

Develop an agreed-upon set of [physical] [gesture]s to represent the vocabulary terms you have studied:

[line] : both arms outstretched, fingers pointing in [opposite] directions
[segment] : same as above, but with hands balled into fists ([endpoint]s)
[point] : one hand makes a [fist]
[perpendicular] : left arm straight across the chest ; right arm bent at elbow, resting on the left arm, forming an [upside-down] T
[parallel] : forearms held parallel, like the [touchdown] symbol in (American) [football]
[acute] angle : arms make an acute angle
[obtuse] angle : arms make an obtuse angle

etc., etc. Students all stand up; the teacher or leader calls a vocabulary term, [simultaneously] making one of the gestures, but not necessarily the one that goes with the term. Students must respond with the [correct] gesture, or else they’re [out] and have to sit down. Continue until you have only one person still standing; that person becomes the [leader] in the next round. This is particularly fun if the teacher is NOT the leader, and makes the wrong gestures, because a good many of the students usually try to copy the teacher’s gesture.

[AROUND THE WORLD]

We play this with [flash cards] to improve speed of [recall]; we usually use [multiplication] or [division] cards, but it would work on any level. Students sit in a circle, or around a table. The teacher or leader sits where the players can see [hir]. One student, the challenger, gets up and stands behind the person to hir right. The teacher holds up a flashcard; the student (of those two) who gives the correct answer [first] advances to challenge the person in the next seat. Students can only give one answer; if someone [blurt]s out the wrong answer, the other person has as much time as [sie] needs to think of the correct [response]. The challenger continues until sie makes a [mistake], at which point sie takes the seat of the person she was competing with, and that person continues around the circle. When a student has advanced around the circle back to hir original seat (either in one turn or over the course of the game, depending on circumstances), sie is the winner. Any number of people can win; this game can go on for an [indefinite] amount of time.

[QUIZMO] (overview)

Based on the commercially available QUIZMO^TM games; a form of math [BINGO]. Variations abound; basically each student is given a playing board consisting of a 4x4 or 5x5 blank grid (each square is 1-2” on a side, so the board fits on an 8 ½ x 11 piece of paper) which [sie] fills in with possible [answer]s from a given pool. The teacher or leader calls [math problems] which the students then [solve], covering the [correct] answer space on their boards using slips of paper or small chips (so that the boards are [re-usable]). When we play, there is no [FREE SPACE] in the center of the board, but there are [two] winners per game—the first two people to cover a [horizontal], [vertical], or [diagonal] row on their playing boards.

FRACTION / DECIMAL / PERCENT QUIZMO

Students fill in the spaces on their 4x4 boards with the following [percentage]s (in [random] order): 33 1/3%, 66 2/3%, 25%, 75%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, 100%, 16 2/3%, 83 1/3%, 12.5%, 37.5%, 62.5%, 87.5%. (there are more percents listed than spaces on the board, so not every student will have every answer on [hir] board); The teacher’s cards have the corresponding [fraction]s (1/3, 2/3, ¼, etc.) and [decimal]s (.33…, .66…, . 25, etc.) on them.

VARIABLE QUIZMO

Each 5x5 board is printed with a key (for the sake of example, lets say A=1, B=2, C=3, D=4, etc.) Students fill in the spaces on their 5x5 board with the numbers 1 - 25 (in random order). The question cards are printed with problems involving [variable]s: C^B, A + B, A x D, etc. whose answers are the numbers 1 through 25.

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I don’t think this is [quite] what [Rancid_Pickle] had in mind, but these games have been brought to you courtesy of [Everything Quests: Games and Distractions] (see also [Battleship]).

math games for the classroom