Past Numeracy and Literacy Newsletters for your reference

Snap!

Bronya, my nearly 5 year old (9 weeks to go!), pulled out her cards today and I was invited to play a game of SNAP!. Such a simple game but loads of fun and laughter always abounds with it I've found. Anyway I got to thinking about the mathematical value in playing this game for young children. I came up with the following list of ways children's mathematical skills are developed and have identified the mathematical ideas that emerge from these:

# distributing cards evenly between players when they deal (sharing evenly is the basis of division)

# turning over one card at a time and turn-taking in a specific order which is repetitive (counting, ordinal numbers (i.e 1st, 2nd, 3rd,...),patterns)

# doing lots of comparing of things and seeing if they match with the next card (same, different, 1 to 1 correspondence/matching). Our cards were picture cards but playing with numbered cards develops number recognition and children can check by counting hearts, clubs and so on.

# counting pairs of cards won at end of game and comparing all players totals to determine winners (order by ranking, counting, cardinal number (how many in set, developing and using comparative language (such as more, less, the same, big, bigger, biggest amount)).

# Of course we can't forget timing! That's a biggy in this game and I'm needing to speed up my reflexes now Bronny has got the hang of the game!


Cards are an excellent way to reinforce numbers and number operations (+, -, multiplication, division)(particularly for your school aged children). I frequently used cards in my junior and senior primary school classes as a fun way to support learning. The children love it and its even more fun when an adult looses to them for some unknown reason?!! Hee! Hee!