Math Game: Last One In

Goal: to be the last one to play the game piece

Materials: any manipulatives, such as poker chips

How to play: we start with 10 chips. The goal is to move pieces from the start pile to the finish pile, trying to arrange it so you are the one to move the last piece from the start pile. Player 1 can select either one or two chips, and move them to another pile. Player 2 can then select either one or two chips and move them to the other pile, and Player 1 goes again.

As with many of the other games I’ve written about here, this one is fun not only for very young children, but can also satisfy a more advanced player. While the rules are easy to learn for even a very young child, the theory behind winning can touch on some relatively advanced topics. With a new emphasis on patterns, I talked with Penny about any patterns she discerned in our play. I don’t blame her for not noticing many (she just wants to beat old Dad!), so I did talk with her about the idea of winning, which is forcing your opponent to have the wrong number of chips when it’s her turn…the trick is how far toward the beginning do you start this planning. The strategy hinges on how many chips there are at the start, and even how many each player can take each turn (1 or 2 is only a suggestion).

I reiterate here that I believe these types of games are more useful to a young child than more rote activities such as working out a flash card addition problem by counting out manipulatives, then counting out some more and seeing how many you have. While the rote activities are useful for teaching a certain technique or algorithm I think a very young child, which I would define as one not yet in Kindergarten, gets more from these games where they spend some time thinking about strategies, dealing with the consequences of their decisions, and competing for fun with a goal in mind.