Strengthen Math concepts using playing cards.

Playing cards are a great way to spend time and have fun. My daughter loves to play cards. She was introduced to card playing by my father in law, who used to play a simple matching game with her when she was about 3.

It was like this:

·        The cards were equally divided among the players and kept in stacks with their face down.

·        The players took turns in drawing a card at the top of their own stack and placed it at the centre.

·        You keep drawing cards in turns and piling them at the centre till a matching card comes up.

·        If your card matches the one at the top of the central pile; you can keep the entire pile.

·        E.g. If you put a diamond on a diamond that is already at the top of the pile; the pile is yours.

One day, she told me that she was bored of this game and wanted to play something new. So I tried to invent an age-appropriate game for her.

While racking my brains, I discovered that many mathematical concepts can be introduced and strengthened using playing cards.

These are some of the games we played together and which have helped her understand some concepts thoroughly after they were introduced at school.  

1.    Sequencing:

     Oh, this is just simply solitaire.

·        Place all the aces in a line.  

·        Shuffle the rest of the cards well and stack them.

·        Keep drawing cards one at a time till you get the next number in the sequence.

My daughter soon understood that number 3 follows number 2 and so on.

2.    Before and after:

This is actually a traditional game called “Badam Satti”. It is a slightly complicated version of the sequencing game. Of course I had initially kept it simple.

It’s like this:

·        You place all the sevens in a line.

·        Then, distribute the cards equally among the players and start sequencing on both sides of 7 i.e. before and after.

3.    Greater than/less than:

·        Keep the pile of cards at the centre.

·        Both the players draw one card each.

·        The person who draws a card with a bigger number is allowed to keep both the cards.

4.    Addition:

·        Draw one card each.

·        The person who draws the bigger number gets a turn to add numbers on both the cards.

5.    Subtraction:

·        This is similar to the addition game above with a slight difference.

·        The person with the smaller card subtracts his number from the other bigger card.

6.    Odd/even (level 1):

·        Draw a card and tell whether it’s odd or even.

7.    Odd/even (level 2):

·        Draw one card each.

·        Add them up and tell whether the sum is odd or even.

You can add your own fun elements to the games and even invent your own games.

Happy playing J