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The Power of…A Deck Of Cards
Card games are a great way to bring numbers, mathematics and the skill of strategy into family fun time!
Games to Play
Prep
What’s My Number? - Flip a card and call out the number
Concentration - Sort the deck of cards into any array, faced down, each player flips two cards, a match is kept by the player, unmatched cards are flipped back over
Which Number Is Missing? - Use one suit from the Ace to 10. Place the cards out in order, with one missing. Identify the missing number.
Year 1/2
Addition Snap - Deal out cards evenly amongst players. Two central card piles. Each person places a card on a pile. The first to add the numbers takes the cards.
What’s The Number? - Two players. Deal out the cards evenly. Two piles in the middle. Each player flips a card onto a pile. Call out the double digit number created by the two cards flipped over! What other number could the two flipped cards make?
Year 3/4/5/6
Go Fish! - Two to six players. The aim is to collect as many sets of four as possible.
Five cards are dealt to each player if three to six players are involved. With only two players, seven cards are dealt to each. All remaining cards are placed face down in a draw pile. Randomly choose a player to go first.
On your turn, ask a player for a specific card rank. You must already hold at least one card of the requested rank. If the player you ask has any cards of the requested rank, she must give all of her cards of that rank to you.
If you get one or more cards from the player you ask, you get another turn. You may ask any player for any rank you already hold, including the same one you just asked for.
If the person you ask has no relevant cards, they say, “Go fish.” You then draw the top card from the draw pile.
If you happen to draw a card of the rank asked for, show it to the other players and you get another turn. However, if you draw a card that’s not the rank you asked for, it becomes the next player’s turn. You keep the drawn card, whatever rank it is. The next player is the one who said “Go fish.”
When you collect a set of four cards of the same rank, immediately show the set to the other players and place the four cards face down in front of yourself.
Go Fish continues until either someone has no cards left in their hand or the draw pile runs out. The winner is the player who then has the most sets of four.
Spoons - Everyone sits around a table. The dealer shuffles the cards and deals out four cards to each player. Dealer keeps the remaining cards in a draw pile to their right. Set the spoons (one fewer spoon than there are players) in the center of the table.
Everyone picks up their cards and looks at them.
The dealer picks up one card from the pile to their right. They quickly add the card to their hand and then discards one of their cards to the left, where the next person picks it up.
The goal is to get four of a kind in your hand, so the dealer quickly decides as they pick up each new card whether to keep it (if it matches a card they already have) or discard it. If they keep the card they picked up, they discard another card to their left, so they are always holding four cards.
The person next to the dealer picks up the card the dealer discarded, and then discards one of their cards to the left. Play continues around in a circle, with everyone picking up one card from the right (where another player has discarded it) and discarding one card to the left (where the next player can pick it up).
As soon as someone gets four of a kind in their hand, they grab one of the spoons from the center. The person who misses out on a spoon, is out of the game.
Check out the video demonstration: Spoons video
