Wednesday, March 12, 2014

The One with the Integer War - Bunco Style

Oh my goodness.

My students and I had so much fun in class yesterday.  

And to top it off there were some great conversations about integers going on.

A few weeks ago as we were ending our unit on fractions I came across this blog post and immediately knew I wanted to try it out with my students.

Thank you Controlling my Chaos for sharing this fabulous idea.

It started with the purchase of 14 decks of cards.  Thank goodness for Dollar Tree.  I was able to get all of them for only $7.   And then I removed all of the jokers, jacks, queens, and kings from the decks.

I arranged my desk so that students were sitting with a partner.  This set the stage.  My students knew something was up when they walked in and saw the new arrangement.

Each pair of students were given a deck of cards which they divided evenly between the two of them.

They then played the old card game war...only with a few slight changes.

While the black cards represented positive numbers, the red cards represented negative numbers.

Aces were worth one.

Here's where it gets interesting.

The tables were numbered in true Bunco fashion.   The winner of each table gets to move up a table.  The goal was to get to the head table.  The winner of the head table stayed at the head table, but the loser had to go all the way to the last table.

Really you need to know go read Controlling My Chaos's post.   It is a much better description and even includes pictures.

My students and I were had a blast.  We were all smiling and learning.

Students were really getting into it.  There were a lot of "OOHs  and AWW MANs flying around.

They were begging to play longer.

They were upset today when they walked in and the desk were back to normal.

We'll have to play again soon.

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