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Algebra Games.

Here are two algebraic board games targeted at a Level 6 audience. Both involve substitution skills and pupils must be comfortable using positive and negative numbers. These should be played to consolidate skills already given.

In Truncate a die is rolled and the number substituted into an expression. The resulting answer could be positive or negative, rational or irrational! Pupils have to truncate the answer to a whole number and move that number of places. (If you need to work on rounding skills with a class, you may want to amend the rules). The direction of the move will depend whether it is a positive or negative answer. Some games may last up to 30 minutes!

Race Track II is similar to the game above, except the answers are whole numbers. Again direction of movement depends on a positive/negative answer. The number of laps in a game depends on how much time you have. Some nice explorations for the more advanced maybe studying some of the expressions. For example 5e/e or u2/u, why do these give certain answers ? Which expressions can give negative answers? Can pupils set up inequalities for these expressions showing when they give positive answers? When they realise the "make up" of the expressions let them try to make up their own board game.

Ian Fisher

This article is about 10ticks worksheets Level 6 Pack 1 Page 21 and Level 6 Pack 1 Page 22.

Maths in Schools. March 2003. Vol 32 No 2.

 
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