Games and puzzles are a great way of practicing math skills while having fun. Playing games and doing puzzles support computational fluency, strategy development, and making connections between mathematical concepts.
Do you love to play Tic Tac Toe?
Tic Tac Toe (2 players)
Goal: Be the first to get 3 marks of “x” or “o” in a row (up, down, diagonally)
How to play: Draw the gameboard on a piece of paper.
Players decide who will be “x” and who will be “o”.
Both players take turns putting their marks in one of the empty squares.
The first player to get 3 of their marks “x” or “o” in a row (up, down, diagonally) is the winner. If all 9 squares are full, the game is over. If no player has 3 marks in a row, the game ends in a tie.
Did you know there are other versions of Tic Tac Toe that can help children develop number sense?
Tic Tac Odd
Goal: be the first player to make a row of three that adds up to an odd number.
How to play: Draw the gameboard on a piece of paper. Players can use any two consecutive numbers instead of the X and O.
For example, player one only uses the number 5 and player two only uses the number 4 to play Tic Tac Toe with the goal of being the first player to make a row of three that adds up to an odd number.
Tic Tac Six
Goal: Be the first player to make a row of three that adds up to six.
How to play: Draw the gameboard. At the start of each turn, a player will toss a coin to determine heads or tails. Heads represents the number 1 and tails represents the number 2, the player will then use that number on the tic-tac-toe board. For example: Player 1 flips the coin, it lands on heads, player 1 must use the number 1 on any available space on the board. Then Player 2 flips the coin. (Any item that has two options can be substituted for the coin, i.e. integers tile, a virtual coin toss, selecting from two different coloured cubes)