Hello all.
I thought it was time to post another game for those of you who are looking to support your intermediate students. This is another classic game from BEAM. It’s called the Game of Remainders — but don’t be fooled! It’s about far more than simple division. There are connections to be made to skip counting and the multiples here that are worth talking about!
As a tool for thinking and for identifying the important patterns inherent in this game, consider giving students a hundred chart to begin. Have them shade or highlight all the multiples of 6 (6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, etc) before playing the game.
Then, as they land on a number in the wheel (like say 49), they can refer to the chart and see that the number 49 is not coloured, so it’s going to have a remainder. Looking further, the will notice that it is in fact one more than a multiple of 6, which means there will be 1 remainder.
Fun, right?
Be sure students gave a chance to talk about what they’re noticing in the chart as they use it. The more we describe our thinking, the clearer it gets and the more connections we make!
I’ve made a few other versions of this game if you’re interested in downloading them. They follow the same format, but address divisibly of 3, 4 and 5.
Three in a line – remainders game – 3
Three in a line – remainders game – 4
Three in a line – remainders game – 5
And, if you’re looking for a resource to help you in your teaching of division, consider this one: Fair Shares – Teaching Division in Grades 4-7. It’s available from my on-line store.
All the best as we count down to summer!
Carole
Mathematical Thinking 
I added this to my games page. http://mathhombre.blogspot.com/p/games.html
I like the premise a lot. I’m wondering about a way to get students to have more choice. It seems like as is you would find an advantage in going 1st or 2nd pretty quickly. But then maybe they don’t need to play it very many times? Have you tried it with 4 in a row?
What about a follow up game reversed? You roll a die, then fill in a square on a hundreds board with that remainder. (6=0) Or you could cull a deck of cards for just the values needed (0 to n-1 for division by n; I like Jacks for zero.)?
Thanks, I’ll be trying this!