My sister-in-law showed me the Rush Hour Traffic Jam Game by Think Fun this weekend. She “assigned” one of the harder cards in the deck to me (sometimes it sucks to be known as the math mom) and assured me that I could do it.
The Set-up
You set up the 6×6 game board with the plastic vehicles just like the game card shows. Here’s where the math starts.
The skills children develop doing this support graphing on the Cartesian coordinate plane later on.
Even if your child isn’t ready for the actual game play, this step supports them in math!
The Goal
Allow the ice cream truck to “escape” the maze.
In order to do this, you are allowed to slide any of the cars forward or back. They can’t crash into other cars to push them out of the way. And you can’t lift any of them off the game board.
A more challenging goal is to also do this in the minimum amount of moves possible.
The Strategy
Everyone has their own plan. My nephew likes to scooch the cars around until he stumbles upon an answer. I decided to pick up the cars and move them to the most unique solution to see what the end result should look like.
The Math
You’ve the coordinate plane. You have logic. And you have strategy. But you have someone much more amazing here.
The beauty of the game is the way it simulates mathematical research and discovery.
Everyone has their own style.
Everyone has their own solution.
If you follow the rules and “win” then you’ve done it right, regardless of how someone else did it.
There are many levels of success – and the player determines which level he or she is shooting for.
Given the board and the colorful cars, you can create your own game.
Wanna play?
The next time you’re tutoring or teaching math, consider treating it like the Rush Hour game. Give it to your child then back off. Refrain from telling or showing. Let him or her play.
One of my favorite math games as a kid was The Tower of Hanoi. I had no idea what it was called until college, though. To me it was another cheap wooden puzzle. Or a game you could play with four coins and 10 toothpicks.
The object of the game:
Move the stack from where it is, to another square or post.
The rules of the game:
You can only move one disk (or coin) at a time.
You can only put a disk (or coin) on top of one that’s bigger – physically. (I.e. you can’t put a big one on top of a smaller one.)
You can play it online for free or buy a physical version in classic or kid-friendly versions.
How can you use The Tower of Hanoi with your kids?
In the Tower of Hanoi puzzle, the math is vast – especially for such a simple little puzzle. But the math can be discovered gradually.
Present these challenges to your kids, one at a time:
Move the stack according to the rules (just get it to another place.)
Move the stack according to the rules in as few moves as possible. How many moves is that?
Make the stack smaller or larger. Then move the stack according to the rules in as few moves as possible. How many moves is that?
Repeat challenge #3 with many different numbers of coins/disks. Use cut out pieces of paper if necessary.
Determine how many moves it would take to move a stack of 100 disks. Or 1000 disks.
Then figure out a way to say this without numbers. In other words, create some sort of formula that will tell you how many moves you need to move any number of disks.
These challenges might range over many many years. I first learned of The Tower of Hanoi when I was about ten. And I’m still learning about it 30 years later.
Oh, and try to resist giving them any answers – ever. Instead let them work on it in their spare time.
Your turn!
Have you played The Tower of Hanoi math game, or a version of it? Do you remember the first time you came across it? Did you learn or teach math with it?
I had to wait for Daughter to be in bed before digging in – the box states, “Recommended for ages 16+.”
I was pretty sure that a precocious 10 year old could handle it but I was unwilling to risk a 2 year old eating my cool puzzle.
My “solution” to the puzzle…
Oh, my… all the pieces are exactly the same!
No biggie, though – I’m pretty smart. “I can do this!” I thought.
I thought.
After a while, I felt like maybe I was doing it right, and maybe not. Here’s the view from the top when I had 12 of the 30 pieces left to go:
Guess what – the instructions clearly state “check that no parts are touching in the interior.”
Everything in mine is touching!
I’m (maybe) throwing in the towel!
I keep looking at the mostly-built thing. It’s pretty, even in its unfinished state. I’m not one to quit, but I will pause temporarily.
So for now, I have the wad of blue looking at me everyday. Staring. Saying, “Are you smart enough to finish me?”
Sometimes I tell it to hush.
Sometimes I google it.
Windell Oskay, an Evil Mad Scientist, has some great images on his writeup of making your own Frabjous. I’ll likely use these when I get the courage tackle this thing again.
I could just watch the video.
I’m against looking in back-of-the-book answer pages. So I’m certainly not about to let a video tell me how to work a puzzle.
But my cantankerous attitude doesn’t mean that you get deprived. Here’s the video:
You can buy the Frabjous online for $29 plus about $7 shipping within the U.S. Technically, you can save the $36 bucks and build your own. But that might be a real pain. Plus, if you buy it from the Museum of Mathematics, you support them!
What do you think? Do you want one? Have you built one? Share your thoughts and links to pictures in the comments.
The Museum of Mathematics (MOMath) will open in New York City in 2012.
Last minute shopping? Me too! How about some of these math gifts for your favorite folks…
For Kids
Numb ‘n’ Number by Peter Weatherall – A collection of fun math songs.
Worms! What kid doesn’t like worms? And these are measuring worms!
For Grownups
Math T-Shirts by ExBoyfriend Collection – Sad? Funny? These are cute for even the “non-math” people.
Want something a little more fancy? How about math jewelry like this Fibonacci necklace!
For Families
Math games are great for full family fun – and games like Uno… well, that’s math too!
For Math Geeks
Old math books! Husband found a College Algebra book from 1947 for me – gave it to me as a “just because” gift. Here’s a Trig book by the same guy. You probably can get an old math book for your favorite geek at any second hand book store!
Math Music! The Klein Four Group’s instant download Musical Fruitcake CD (I just downloaded it, myself!) To give you a sample of how cool these guys were (they are now professors all over the world), here’s a fun Christmas song from them:
How about it – what are you up to for last minute shopping? Are you done?
Do you have any Pre-K and/or K12 kids in your family? I spent the day at Teacher Heaven on the Southwest Freeway in Houston, Texas yesterday and found some great math games!
I was there for the day to demonstrate math games and manipulatives and generally help parents and teachers of K12 kiddos with math goodies.
Meagan, Shantrelle and the crew had chosen a couple of math games to start me off. I also went and browsed the rest of the math section for others. By the end of the day, my table was jam-packed with math games!
I fell for the loss leader!
The big push at Teacher Heaven was the “fill-the-tub” sale – and I fell for it before I left. Hook, line and sinker!
I resisted too many goodies for myself, but made sure to do a little Christmas shopping. Here’re a few of my excellent finds. Luckily my family members a) don’t read this site much and b) don’t know that these things were originally shrink wrapped!
The Pre-K find of the day was inflatable number cubes!
I nabbed these number cubes early in the day to have something to get the little ones engaged as they walked in the door. They were so cool I couldn’t resist taking them home to Daughter.
They’ll be great for helping her identify the numeral and saying the word. Plus, I’ll be able to create a bunch of math games with it – like doing arithmetic with the numbers when she gets older, etc.
One K12 treasure was the Aba-Conundrums by Fat Brain Toys.
Aba-Conundrums comes with an abacus and a fun puzzle book. Using logic, you practice creating numbers and working with the tool.
I can’t decide if I’ll give it to one family member, keep it for myself or give it to Ma as a “house” game.
My other K12 find was the Check Math Game.
Also by Fat Brain Toys, Check Math is totally for my niece. I’ll likely open it and play it with Husband first, though!
You set the number pieces up and you capture your opponents pieces like checkers. The movement of pieces is a little different, though: a number piece can move to any square that’s a multiple of it. For example, the 2 can move to a 6 or 14. The 3 can move also to the 6 but not to the 14.
Time for Christmas shopping!
Pick up one of these math games at your local teacher supply store. And if you’re in Houston, head over to Teacher Heaven!
I was at my dad’s house the other day and decided to pull out my new Math’d Potatoes game to see how my super-gaming family liked it.
The kids in the house were too young to play, so my sister and I asked Aunt Linda and our stepmom to play with us.
They quickly claimed they were “math Neanderthals” but agreed to play anyway. My dad, an engineer, was asleep.
The game has simple rules.
You play Math’d Potatoes by drawing a card, rolling five dice and making an expression that “satisfies” the card.
The card requests various types of “answers”:
Even or odd
Equal to a certain number
Between two numbers
Less than/greater than a certain number
Everybody got into it.
Aunt Linda and Louise (my pet name for my stepmom) both agreed that it was a fun math game. This is in spite of the fact that neither one of them like math, and Aunt Linda doesn’t even like to play games at all!
My dad saw the game the next morning.
I had intentionally not waken up my father to play with us the night before. My decision was validated the next morning.
My dad is an engineer, and as such tends to use the phrase “all you have to do is,” and the word “just.” He’s a very smart man, and I’ve learned lots from him through the years. And one of those lessons is: “Keep an engineer away from sensitive math learners.”
Sure enough, when he saw the game, he eagerly said, “What’s this? Are we going to play it?”
When I explained we played the night before he responded with, “Why didn’t you wake me? I totally would’ve won.”
Math learning is slowly build, and quickly destroyed.
When we were playing, Aunt Linda and Louise were both starting to warm to the idea of math. They were enjoying the game. My sister and I were holding back just a little to give them an opportunity to discovery their own skills. (We both experienced the engineer–math–dad super push growing up.)
So by the end of the game that night, they were excited, confident, and enjoying themselves.
Had I woken up my father to play the game, he certainly would have won. He might’ve turned it into a competition, or he might have tried to help a little too much.
Either way they would’ve lost interest. Their confidence would have been destroyed. And two beautiful, smart and happy women would have their, “I’m a math Neanderthal” thoughts validated.
You can use this with your children.
If you or your spouse are in a math related field, or was “always good at math,” be aware of your potential intimidation factor. Hold back. Don’t help. Allow discovery and confidence to come at its own slow and natural pace. Your children will learn math, in their own time.
Don’t force it, or you might destroy it.
Note: They sent me this game for free. This is not a review, per se, but still – you should know how I got it.
Learning math isn’t just about being taught math. It’s about fun, discovery and experimentation. In the Count 10, Read 10! program, parents get to spend 10 minutes a night playing math with their children.
Like many games you’ll find here, this is a version of Calvinball (from Bill Watterson’s Calving & Hobbes cartoon). You and your children make up the rules as you go along or as you see fit.
The next player says “plus” and another number. Then adds them and says the result.
The next player says “plus” and another number. She adds that to the previous result and says the new result.
Play continues until a winner is determined.
Example
Leader: Five!
Player 2: Plus three is eight!
Leader: Plus one is nine!
Player 2: Plus two is eleven!
Leader: WINNER!
End game, and how to choose a winner.
The round ends when the youngest child reaches their limit of counting or adding. The winner is determined by a rule or random choosing. The older the children, the more “real rules” you’ll need to follow.
Possible winning rules:
The first person to add up to 10 – or a number designated by the leader at the beginning of the game.
The person who noticies that another player is wrong in their calculations (this is perfect for the parent to “test” the kid).
At the whim of child or parent.
Variations
The point is to have fun with counting and math. As your children grow, you’ll have to adjust the rules to give them more challenge and to fit the “real game” model. Here are some options for variations:
Each player can only add a multiple of their age (grownups use one of the digits from their age).
Each player can only add a multiple of a roll of a die (get foam dice for bedtime).
Subtraction – instead of adding up, start with a higher number and add down.
Multiplication – instead of adding, multiply each new number. This one could get “fun” really quick!
Will it work?
All games created at MathFour.com are tested or will be tested on Daughter. The rub is that Daughter is almost 2 – we’ll have to wait a while to do this one. So your input is important.
Will it work? Did it work? Try it and let me know how it goes in the comments, please. Also share your own variations.
Sokikom (so-kee-kom) is an award-winning education technology company that develops math social learning games. Their recent offering, launching this week at the ISTE Conference, is an online social math game by the same name. It’s designed to motivate elementary school students in grades 1-6. I did a review of the game here.
Snehal Patel, founder of Sokikom
MathFour.com was privileged to interview the creator and founder of Sokikom, Snehal Patel.
MathFour: Thanks for agreeing to share with our readers, Snehal! Let’s start at the beginning. What is your background?
Snehal: I moved to the U.S. when I was very young. Through elementary school, my family moved to five different schools in various states across the country, which gave me first-hand experience of the challenges faced in elementary math. I was a math tutor in high school and college, and then went on to earn a degree in computer science from Arizona State University. From there, I became a senior software engineer at Motorola, where I also coached/tutored other engineers. I left that job to start a math tutoring learning center. I became a certified math tutor and also received certification to teach as a substitute. Through that experience, I provided one-on-one tutoring to over 500 students ranging in age from 5 to 72. I’m very passionate about improving learning – specifically in math.
MathFour: What prompted you to create an online social game using math?
Snehal: The idea for Sokikom came to me when I was a math tutor and become aware of how many students weren’t excited about and engaged in learning math. As a result, these kids were missing out on building the foundation in math skills that they were going to need to succeed in high school, college and beyond. I saw, however, that math games – especially those that were social – got these same kids excited about and engaged in learning math. This made me think: how many other students in the U.S. face this same problem, and how can we use online technology to address it? That was the genesis of Sokikom – a highly engaging online math game with community and team-play elements.
MathFour: Have you created other math based games?
Snehal: Yes, when I was a math tutor, I created various paper-based and card games that I used with my students.
MathFour: Have you created other online social games?
Snehal: No. Sokikom is my first online math social learning game.
MathFour: Do you have children? Did they play a part in the conceptualization or development of Sokikom?
Snehal: My wife and I don’t have children, but I have a younger sister I helped raise and tutored in math throughout her K-12 schooling. This experience absolutely helped me as I considered how to make Sokikom fun and educational. Another big part in the conceptualization of Sokikom came with my experience tutoring students in math.
MathFour: The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends limiting exposure to screen media. How much time do you recommend children play on Sokikom?
Snehal: Sokikom is designed to provide efficient learning within short periods of time. We recommend that children spend between 20 to 40 minutes playing Sokikom each day – a small block of time with a tremendous learning opportunity.
MathFour: In the multiplayer mode in Sokikom, you can’t actually “see” your opponent – only his scores. Do you plan on adding this feature at some point?
Snehal: Great question. Two of our multiplayer games don’t allow children to see their opponent teams – just their scores. However, Opirate multiplayer does allow children to see their teammates, but not opponents. In terms of future development, we are planning on adding “power ups,” which will allow interesting interactions between teammates and opponents.
MathFour: What’s next for Sokikom? What are your goals for the company and the game?
Snehal: We plan to continue improving Sokikom’s math social learning games! We are continuing with efficacy and usability research and love to hear feedback from parents, teachers and students on ways to improve Sokikom. We will be launching new games and cool virtual features such as “power ups” soon.
MathFour: Do you have any advice for parents and teachers?
Snehal: I believe that tools such as Sokikom can greatly increase the motivation for children to learn math, which leads to higher math achievement. In the case of Sokikom, I would advise parents and teachers to make use of the free reporting features available in the control panel. Parents and educators can keep track of children’s progress and usage, and receive alerts when students require extra help.
Thanks so much, Snehal! Find him and the Sokikom crew on Twitter @Sokikom and check out the game at Sokikom.com.
I’ve recently been playing a new math game called Sokikom (so-kee-kom). It’s an online social math game – yes “social” – for 1st through 6th graders.
So far I love it. The only bummer is that Daughter is only 21 months old, so a mouse to her either squeaks or is edible. But I did have some older kids in my family play – and they’ve all enjoyed it!
It currently has three games, Frachine, Treeching and Opirate, and various other perks and treats to help children with math. It’s officially launching next week and the folks at headquarters tell me there’s more to come – even after launch.
Here’s a little info to whet your whistle for it:
Frachine reinforces fractions.
The fun part of this fraction game is you get to cut the pieces up while you play. So it isn’t just showing parts of a whole, but the child actively makes the parts of the whole.
Treeching supports money, measurements, time, patterns and early algebra.
Sokikom is full of surprises. Sometimes the answer isn’t in the form you’re expecting. At first glance, this challenge puzzle seems all about mouse control. But notice there isn’t a matching “12 months” on the tree. Instead you have to convert. This is a great opportunity for teaching units!
Opirate reinforces operations and early algebra.
This was my least favorite game of Sokikom – but only because my sister creamed me in it. (We used the online social part from our respective houses. Felt like being a kid again!)
Opirate is a bit of a thinking-through game. You have to do the problem (in the cloud at the top of the screen), then find the solution on the map, then get yourself to the solution. The “X marks the spot” numbers keep popping up – so every new problem has the old X’s that you had before (if you can remember where) as well as some new ones.
The Social Aspect
Your children can “friend” other kids with whom to play. I’m not a Farmville or World of Warcraft person, but I understand the appeal. Playing 20 minutes a night with an online friend keeps kids connected and at home, safe.
More Goodies for the Kids
In Sokikom kids earn energy (which they need to play a game) and Soki-money. As they accomplish levels, they get awarded Soki-stars. The Soki-stars unlock clothing and accessories items they can “buy” with Soki-bucks to personalize their avatar – a popular element of any social game.
For parents and teachers
Parents typically read to children before bed. Sokikom is a way for parents to encourage a little bedtime math: do some Sokikom math for 10 minutes and read for 10 minutes.
And since many households have multiple computers, you can play online with your child – even sitting next to him or her. What a great bedtime routine!
Sokikom also has a robust infrastructure to track and manage the progress of each child:
Are you ready for it?
Sokikom has won numerous awards and is funded by the US Department of Education. From their literature:
Sokikom is focused on five core tenets: provide social learning where kids help kids learn math; adapt to individual students’ needs and learning styles; encourage positive and safe competitive game-play, which leads to measurable improvements; and connect school and home to allow for continuous web-based learning.
I’ve seen these in action with this game. I’m a hands-on kind of mom and teacher, and I’m very much into attaching math to anything we can. If your kids lean toward video games, Sokikom‘s a great one to use!
I was browsing through the book Family Math and found a nifty game called Hurkle. It goes a little something like this:
Someone picks a place on the coordinate plane (in secret) for Hurkle to live.
Others guess Hurkle’s home by giving coordinates and pointing out those coordinates.
When they are wrong, they are given a hint of which way to go (from their guess) to find Hurkle.
The coordinate “space” is around too.
This made me think of the conversation I had with a neighbor the other day while walking our children to the park. When Scotty beams someone in Star Trek, he needs coordinates. But those coordinates must be measured from some origin (0,0,0) in the universe to make any sense. So where’s the origin?
A student of mine long ago found that the origin was Earth. My neighbor argued it should be Vulcan – apparently they started the United Federation of Planets.
And we can find coordinates at work in board games.
With thoughts of these two in my mind, I wonder what ever happened to the game of Battleship. It’s a great game of coordinates along with logic. Once you hit a ship, you have to go in each direction to determine how big the ship is and in what direction.
I’m excited about looking around my world today for more coordinate systems. Where do you see them in your world? And how do you apply them in your teaching? Leave your thoughts and ideas in the comments.
