Description
This is a rounding game I developed for a colleague at my school: I am a working teacher (as I have been for the past 37 years) so I know stuff. And here’s what I know: games are fun, learners like to play games, and games should exercise the learner’s mind in a variety of ways. Which is how I developed the “rounding” and “un-rounding” games.
The “Rounding Game” is your basic bingo game: you turn over two cards, round off the number to the nearest ten, find that rounded number on the bingo board and put your token on it (and if there is more than one space with that number, you have to make a decision which optimizes your position.)
But here’s where this game is different: there is also an “unrounding” game - that is, to really understand and practice rounding, you also have to know how to “unround.” If I told you that a rounded number was 5,000, what could the original number have been? Yup: anything from 4,500 - 5,499 rounds off to 500. This strengthens the learner’s understanding of how rounding works: it transforms “rules” into deeper comprehension when students both “un-round” a number as well as round it.
Playing the Game with the Entire Class: This is a “class pack” of 50 different game boards - when you print it, there will be a “rounding” game board on one side, and an “un-rounding” game board on the other. You can hand out a different game board to each student in your class and play it together, with each student getting a chance to select the cards from the deck (because they should be involved, right?) or use a random number generator. I prefer taking numbers from a deck of 0 - 9 digit cards, because then students have choices: if they pick a 4, 5, 3 and a 7, they can choose to use it as 4,537 or 4,375 or 4,573 or .... well, you get the point. There's a lot of skill involved in making the right number.
Small Group Play: You can also have students play this game in small groups, and because everyone has a different card, you most likely won’t have any ties. You can also have two students share a single board and “block” one another from getting 5 in a row (or alter the rules to make it 3 or 4 in a row) as in tic-tac-toe.
Recording: I think it’s important that students record their work. The recording sheet uses the “≈” sign, which is used to designate that one of the numbers has been rounded. So 4,751 ≈ 5,000 means “4,751 is rounded to 5,000.” The unrounded number goes on the left side and the rounded number on the right. Students should record each time they take a turn, which also means you get a written record of their work to check on and correct.
The Rounding and UnRounding Games: Nearest Thousand : 50 Different Boards
Highlights
Description
This is a rounding game I developed for a colleague at my school: I am a working teacher (as I have been for the past 37 years) so I know stuff. And here’s what I know: games are fun, learners like to play games, and games should exercise the learner’s mind in a variety of ways. Which is how I developed the “rounding” and “un-rounding” games.
The “Rounding Game” is your basic bingo game: you turn over two cards, round off the number to the nearest ten, find that rounded number on the bingo board and put your token on it (and if there is more than one space with that number, you have to make a decision which optimizes your position.)
But here’s where this game is different: there is also an “unrounding” game - that is, to really understand and practice rounding, you also have to know how to “unround.” If I told you that a rounded number was 5,000, what could the original number have been? Yup: anything from 4,500 - 5,499 rounds off to 500. This strengthens the learner’s understanding of how rounding works: it transforms “rules” into deeper comprehension when students both “un-round” a number as well as round it.
Playing the Game with the Entire Class: This is a “class pack” of 50 different game boards - when you print it, there will be a “rounding” game board on one side, and an “un-rounding” game board on the other. You can hand out a different game board to each student in your class and play it together, with each student getting a chance to select the cards from the deck (because they should be involved, right?) or use a random number generator. I prefer taking numbers from a deck of 0 - 9 digit cards, because then students have choices: if they pick a 4, 5, 3 and a 7, they can choose to use it as 4,537 or 4,375 or 4,573 or .... well, you get the point. There's a lot of skill involved in making the right number.
Small Group Play: You can also have students play this game in small groups, and because everyone has a different card, you most likely won’t have any ties. You can also have two students share a single board and “block” one another from getting 5 in a row (or alter the rules to make it 3 or 4 in a row) as in tic-tac-toe.
Recording: I think it’s important that students record their work. The recording sheet uses the “≈” sign, which is used to designate that one of the numbers has been rounded. So 4,751 ≈ 5,000 means “4,751 is rounded to 5,000.” The unrounded number goes on the left side and the rounded number on the right. Students should record each time they take a turn, which also means you get a written record of their work to check on and correct.
