Choose and Use and Make 100 Centers

Choose and Use Score Sheet

Today the kiddos played two center games while I pulled small groups to work on assessing place value. The first was a Fundamentals game titled Choose and Use. In this game, the students have a set of number cards. Mine are little squares, and I have about 3 of each number 1-9. You could use a deck of cards, I'm sure. Anyway, the kids partner up, and lay out all the cards upside down in between them. The first player turns over three cards. They may use the numbers in any way they wish, and they must use two operations of their choice (operations go in the circles, and the numbers go in the squares.) The goal is to get as close to the target as possible. However far away from the target they are is their score. They want the lowest score possible. For example, it's my turn and I flip over a 2, 5, and 7, I could write in 2 x 7 - 5 = 9. My score for #1 would be 4. The cool thing about this game is that the kids will help each other see how to get the best score possible by rearranging the numbers and changing operations. If I used the same numbers as before, my partner might help me see I could instead do 2 x 5 -7 = 3, so my score would only be 2 now.

The bottom is for extension. In this section four cards are picked and three operations are used. The partners determine their own target number.

Make 100 Center Score Sheet

The second game we played was another Fundamentals game called Make 100. In this partner game, the kids roll a die. They decide whether to put it in the tens column or the ones column. They're trying to get to 100 first before their partner. They CANNOT go over in this game. For example, if my partner and I roll a 4, I could make it 40 and my partner could make it 4. The next roll is a 6. If I make it a 60, I just won the game by reaching a total of 100.

Another example - We roll a 6 and both make it a 60. Then we roll another 6. We can't make it a 60 because we'll go over 100, so we'll both make it a 6 and now we have a total of 66. Then we roll a 3. I make it a 3 and my partner makes it a 30. I now have a score of 69, and my partner has a score of 96. The next roll is a 5. My partner cannot do anything, as he will go over 100, so he loses his turn. I however can make it a 5 and now have a score of 74. And so on and so on...