This is a game that helps your kids do two different things at once: first, they can practice multi-digit multiplication (1 x 2, 2 x 2 and 1 x 3), AND, more important than anything else, they can work on their estimation skills. They also have to do subtraction in order to find out how far they are from their “target” number, so I guess that counts for three things. Actually, they also have to add their scores together, so there’s multi-digit addition as well.

So there you have it: one game, four different skills and all this in a lightly competitive activity. The most important part of this activity is estimation: when most children think of estimation, they confuse it with rounding off their answers, which is actually bass-ackwards. What our students should be doing is making estimates before they come up with answers, and this game is an attempt to do just that.

As you read the instructions, please be sure that your students understand a few things: first, that they are choosing one more card than will be used in the problem, and those cards may not always be “helpful.” That is, the cards are randomly chosen, but at the same time, the student has to make the “best” equation to get close to the target number (which is also randomly chosen.) So this is a game of both luck and skill; you can’t be “bad” at this game unless you don’t estimate carefully.

Comes with 3 different multi-digit multiplication games (1 digit by 2 digits, 2 digits by 2 digits, and 1 digit by 3 digits), target cards and digit cards, as well as full instructions and suggestions for developing flexible and efficient estimation strategies.