Mathematical Chinese Whispers

This is a versatile game based on pictorial consequences. Everyone gets a long thin strip of paper and a pen or pencil and sits in a circle. In the original, everyone draws a picture, then passes their paper to the next person. They write a description of that picture, then fold the paper so that only the description is visible, then pass it on again. The next person draws the description, describes that picture, and so on. At the end you unfold the paper and see how much the picture has changed.

I first adapted this to become "Graphical Consequences", which I played last year with My Lovely Year 10s when finishing up a unit on graphs. I started the pieces of paper off with an equation, which they had to sketch and so on. They made lots of mistakes but loved it.

I have since tried equations/solutions, expanding/factorising, equivalent fractions, and simple question/answer versions, with that class again and this year with year 7. I love that this game gets everyone involved together, and that you get to sit on the floor.

Other ideas (I'm sure there are many many many more that would work):

• inequalities/solutions
• inequality/graph on the number line
• coordinates/point on the number line
• integration/differentiation
• decimal/fraction/percentage
• index notation/expanded notation
• basic numeral/expanded notation
• convert between Hindu-Arabic/Roman Numerals/Egyptian Numerals/any other system
• Trig - between exact values and expressions
• Simplifying surds