Tuesday 12 March 2013

Yes/No Game with Numbers

A simple premise, and very adaptable. Plus it gives us a nice opportunity to get up and get moving!

Here's how it goes:
  • Label one area (e.g. one side of the classroom) with "Yes" and another area with "No"
  • Give each student a number.
  • Ask yes/no questions about the numbers.
  • Students have to go to the correct area, holding their number where you can see it to check.



For example, today I played this with my Peer Numeracy roll call (which was extra good because it was a small group and the year 10 mentors helped check and helped the students who struggled). First I did numbers in the hundreds, then in the thousands.

Some questions:
  • Are you even?
  • Are you more than 50?
  • Are you more than 400?
  • Look at your tens digit. Is your tens digit more than 3?
  • Look at your hundreds digit. Is your hundreds digit odd?
  • Add up your digits. This is your digit sum. Is your digit sum even?

And so on. At the end of each set of questions, I got them to line up in ascending order and collected the numbers and gave out the new numbers.

I've also played as revision with year 7 classes, looking at number properties and special numbers, using questions like:
  • Are you odd?
  • Are you prime?
  • Are you a multiple of 3?
  • Is 4 a factor of you?
  • Are you palindromic?
  • Are you a square number?
  • Are you a triangular number?
  • Are you in the Fibonacci sequence?
  • If you add 3 to yourself, are you a multiple of 5?

Some other ideas:
  • Use decimal numbers and ask questions about the digits in certain places, to reinforce place value
  • Use fractions and ask questions about the numerator and denominator (to reinforce those terms)
  • Use algebraic terms and ask about "are you a like term to ...?" or "is .... a factor of you?"
  • Give students shapes and ask questions about their properties

This also makes me think about getting students into groups for group work. Some ideas:
  • Give students algebraic terms and get them to form groups in their like terms
  • Give students numbers and get them to form groups of multiples
  • Give students shapes and get them to find the same type of shape

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