Link 25
A game of tactics. You will need to think about which cards have the right connections to play this game. You will start to see how numbers are connected together in multiplicative relationships
As always, you can modify the game to make it more challenging or include more people or make it more game-like.
Quick Start
What you need to play
- 1 pack of cards
- A multiplication mat (a large card with white background and Prime Colours border)
- Counters (6 red, 4 green, 2 blue and 1 yellow per player)
Set Up
Set up
Lay the whole pack out (You don't need zero) with the colours showing and the numbers hidden. We recommend laying out in a grid format.Alternative ways to set up the game include:
- Playing with two players who set up a 5 by 5 grid each
- Turning the cards over so that you see the numbers instead
How to Play
How to Play
Once cards are laid out, You are ready to play. In the one player game, you repeat the following moves it is not possible to move any more:
- Choose an initial card. Create this card by putting the same combination of counters as that card on your multipllicaiton mat. Move the card to the side and turn it number side up.
- From now, you'll take turns moving one counter and moving one card. On each go, you can touch one counter. This can be either to move it off the mat or move one on to the mat. The mat must end up with a combination of disks that is the same a one of the cards showing in the grid of cards.
- If after moving that one token you have a card, move it to the side next to the last card that you created. You will form a chain of linked cards in this way
- If you cannot make a card by moving one counter, the game is over. Count your cards if you wish and record the number. Your first goal is to get 25 linked cards.
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Once you have linked as many cards as possible, start at the first and say how the next card compares. You can do this by:
- using multiply or divide - e.g. times the 25 by 3 to get 75 or 54 divided by 2 makes 27
- using how many times bigger or what fraction of the number it is - e.g. 75 is 3 times bigger than 25 or 27 is half of 54
What maths are we practising?
We tend to understand additive difference well. We are used to thinking about how much taller or bigger someone is. This game gets us to focus on the multiplicative difference. It asks how many times bigger is a number. There are two parts to the game that help you to practise useful mathematical skills:
- Tactics for getting more cards. You need to think ahead to not get stuck in this game. Which choice of card will allow you the longest run? Which cards are the most connected?
- Recall. You will practise saying how many times bigger or what fraction of the size one number is compared to another.
The overall goal of this first phase of Prime Colours is to fluently know all of the cards by sight. This helps you build up a multiplicative structure for multiplication facts that will complement the additive structure of times tables perfectly.