Foreheads: a game to develop math fact automaticity in + and x

Foreheads

Objective: Develop Addition and Multiplication Automaticity

Number of Players: 3

Materials: Deck of cards

Game Objective: Collect the most cards

Procedure:

1. Setup
1. Organize students into groups of three
1. Two players are called Foreheads
2. One player is called the Leader
2. Place the students in a triangle so that they can see each other (see Figure 1)
3. Put a deck of cards in the middle of the group so that the students can pull cards easily; the deck should be face-down
4. Card Values
1. cards 2 - 10 are worth the number posted on the card
2. Jacks, Queens, and Kings are worth 10
3. Aces are worth 1
4. Variation:
1. Jack = 11
2. Queen = 12
3. King - 13
4. Joker = 0
2. Playing
1. The Leader says "GO" and the Foreheads pick up a card and place it on their forehead
1. The Foreheads should not look at the card they place on their head
2. The Leader looks at the cards on the Foreheads and states the sum or product of the two cards
3. After hearing the sum or product, the Foreheads look at each other's heads and use the card they can see to identify the card that is on their head.
1. The Foreheads call out the number they think is on their head.
4. The Leader listens to their answers and rewards the cards to the first Forehead who guesses the correct card on their forehead.
5. The Forehead who guessed first and accurately collects the two cards and places them in a neat pile in front of them.
6. Repeat steps 1 - 6 for five rounds.  
7. When 5 rounds have been completed, the Foreheads count the number of cards in front of them and the Forehead with the most cards is declared the winner.
1. A new Leader is chosen from the Foreheads and play continues until the teacher ends the activity.
3. Ties
1. If the Leader cannot tell which Forehead said their answer the fastest and both students called out accurate answers, the two cards are placed in front of the Leader.
1. Repeat steps 1 - 5 described in the playing section above.

Resource

Bay-Williams, J. M., & Kling, G. (2014). Enriching Addition and Subtraction Fact Mastery through Games. Teaching Children Mathematics, 21(4), 238–247. 

Figure 1