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Have you used the array game with your math students?
I was reading the book Mathematical Mindsets by Jo Boaler (so much fantastic research and so many wonderful ideas in her books!) this week, and read about the “array game” (called How Close to 100), which I’ve seen all over Pinterest and thought was very cool. I tried it with my 6th grade math classes last year during a little bit of down time, and they liked it. I hadn't really thought of using it in 6th grade again this year, but last week I noticed the baggie of polyhedral dice that I've had for a looooong time and thought it would be cool to use the dodecahedron dice for the array game. With these dice, the students could use numbers up to 12, rather than 6. Setting up and Playing the Array Game:![]()
To set up their array games, all students needed to do was outline a 20 by 20 area on their own graph paper.
To play the array game, students paired up and then took turns rolling their dice and drawing arrays to represent the multiplication problem they had rolled. It was very interesting to observe the way students arranged their arrays:
The "winner" of the array game was the student with the fewest number of boxes left (some did get to zero left). The students really had fun with this! Array Game Extensions:
Of course, some finished their games earlier than others. In these cases, I asked students to create arrays that used different numbers than the numbers they rolled, but represented the same area.
A second extension for early finishers (only a few) was to use the icosahedron (20-sided) dice, and have students create area models to cover their grids and find the answer to the multiplication problems.
I'm so glad I thought about using those polyhedral dice! Have you used polyhedral dice or played the array game in your math classroom? If so, please share! To Read Next:
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AuthorHey there! I'm Ellie - here to share math fun, best practices, and engaging, challenging, easy-prep activities ideas! Archives
March 2021
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