You’ll need a pen, piece of paper, and nine number cubes. Draw a tic-tac-toe board, and arrange the number cubes so that there is one cube per spot. Change the face of the cube so that for every possible three-in-a-row (like Tic-Tac-Toe) the dice all sum to the same quantity. Of course, all dice being […]
Learning to love math just got way more fun! Introducing Tiny Polka Dot, the colorful card deck that grows with your child! With 16 easy-to-learn games that playfully teach math, from counting & early numeracy to arithmetic & logic, Tiny Polka Dot is the perfect way to nurture your child’s love of math: through play! […]
Set (stylized as SET) is a real-time card game designed by Marsha Falco in 1974 and published by Set Enterprises in 1991. The deck consists of 81 unique cards that vary in four features across three possibilities for each kind of feature: number of shapes (one, two, or three), shape (diamond, squiggle, oval), shading (solid, […]
Similar to Traditional NIM, two players alternate turns picking up tiles. The objective is still to be the player to pick up the last tile. What is different is the arrangement of the tiles at the beginning of the game. Tiles are arranged into a 4×4 grid, like so… For this game players are […]
We recently attended a gathering of mathematics coordinators who, collectively, are responsible for the education about a half a million students. We begin every gathering with some sort of math fun. This puzzle was introduced to us by our friend Jon. At the time of the video, we hadn’t yet learned of its actual name […]
A one-person game/Un juego de una persona Materials/Materiales One game board/Un tablero del juego 8 stones/8 piedras DIRECTIONS/INSTRUCCIONES Place eight stones in this shape so that NO two stones are in the same row, column, or diagonal (even the small diagonals). Coloque ocho piedras en la forma para que NINGUNA de las dos piedras estén […]
The tangram (Chinese: 七巧板; pinyin: qīqiǎobǎn; literally: ‘seven boards of skill’) is a dissection puzzle consisting of seven flat shapes, called tans, which are put together to form shapes. The objective of the puzzle is to form a specific shape (given only an outline or silhouette) using all seven pieces, which can not overlap. It […]
Similar to the basic version of NIM, two players alternate turns picking up tiles. The objective is still to force the opposing player to pick up the last tile. What is different is the arrangement of the tiles at the beginning of the game. Tiles are arranged into the shape of a tower, like so… […]
Sprouts is a paper-and-pencil game that can be enjoyed simply by both adults and children. Yet it also can be analyzed for its significant mathematical properties. It was invented by mathematicians John Horton Conway and Michael S. Paterson at Cambridge University in the early 1960s. Setup is even simpler than the popular Dots and Boxes […]
Three men’s morris is an abstract strategy game played on a three by three board (counting lines) that is similar to tic-tac-toe. Rules Each player has three pieces. The winner is the first player to align their three pieces on a line drawn on the board. There are 3 horizontal lines, 3 vertical lines […]