Description
How it works
Each player draws a card to decide how many horizontal “wires” to draw, then a second card for the vertical ones crossing them. Then they count the intersections. A 3 and a 4 gives twelve crossings — and a child who does not know 3×4 has to find a way to work it out, perhaps doubling 4 to get 8 and adding one more 4. Products get recorded, and after five rounds the most crossings wins. Drawing the array by hand does something a printed one cannot: the structure becomes theirs.
What you’ll need
- A deck containing queens (0), aces (1), 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s
- Paper and pencil for each player
Skills practiced
Multiplication as an array, the Break Apart strategy, and partitioning to find an unknown product.
Grade level
2nd through 5th grade. Use 6s through 9s, or fix one factor, to target a harder fact set.
Instant PDF download. Game instructions adapted from the ideas in Math Fact Fluency by Jennifer Bay-Williams and Gina Kling (ASCD / NCTM, 2019).
