Summary: Prepare For Factoring Block

Prepare for Factoring Block (Algebra)

Learning Goal: Get ready for factoring by practicing with factor pairs and factor thinking. This is a (ideally) a two-player game.

Game Setup: There is a gameboard, a set of game tiles, and two sets of player ID cards (one set is X, one set is =). It is very important that the game tile pages get printed back to back on cardstock so that when it is cut out, you might see correct pairs as the front and back of a card.
The player cards (= or x) should NOT be printed double sided. Print the two pages of game tiles on different colors for easier sorting of levels.

1. Place all the game tiles on the gameboard (see note about levels below).
2. Players take turns declaring the answer for a card,
Level 2: Use the cards with variable expressions.

Using Who Has? Decks to Practice Basic Facts
Once students have developed conceptual understanding of the basic operations they need to develop fluency with the facts. One quick way to include daily practice and motivate students to master these basic facts is through the use of the Who Has? card decks. These decks can be created for virtually any topic and frequent use as both a whole class practice or as a center activity for partners or small groups will provide facts practice in a highly-motivating format.
Classroom Management Strategies
There are several strategies that have proven successful when implementing this activity: * Distributing Cards: Distribute one card to each student, then distribute the extras to strong students in the beginning and to random students as the class becomes more familiar with the deck. * Class Play: As you distribute the cards, encourage students to begin thinking about what the question for their card might be so that they are prepared to answer. When all cards are distributed, select the "0" card or any student to begin. Play continues until the game comes back to the original card. That student answers and then says "stop" to signal the end of the
On the white squares are the four basic Mathematical operations--addition, subtraction, multiplication and division
There are two sets of twelve pieces for each player, marked with numbers from zero to eleven. Odd numbers are marked with negative signs and placed on the left side of the board while even numbers are positive and placed on the right. Numbers outside the playing squares act as guides to show the correct positioning of the pieces.
Basic Gameplay
As the name implies, the game is essentially the same as dama but with an added math twist: in order to win in Damath, a player must score the most points which are earned by “eating” the opponent's pieces. In dama, the move ends there; in Damath, the player must solve the mathematical operation on the square in which the opponents piece is currently standing. The answer to that mathematical operation is the amount of points that the player will receive when s/he does “eat” the opponent's piece.
If the piece marked “-1” eats the piece marked “-3,” with “-3” standing on a multiplication square, the player must first solve the operation (-1 x -3 = 3) and will get three points. The game will go on until all pieces belonging to a player have been eaten and the scores