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My 7-year-old is beginning to learn a little multiplication right now. To help her grasp the concept, we played a little multiplication card game called Count Your Dots. To play it you need a deck of playing cards with the face cards taken out. Leave in the Aces to act as ones. You can choose to start with just smaller numbers to make it easier for beginners if you want. You will also need a paper and a pen or marker.
To play this multiplication card game, have your child choose 2 cards from the deck. They will then use the two cards to draw lines. One card you will draw the lines going horizontally and the other card you will draw going vertically crossing over the first lines forming a grid. Your child will then make a dot at all of the intersecting points of the lines and count them up. This will be their score for that turn. For example, if they choose the cards with the numbers 4 and 5 on them, there will be four lines in on direction and five going the other direction. This will make 20 intersecting points, so 4×5=20.
Take turns playing and adding up your points as you go. The one with the most points after a predetermined number of rounds is the winner! It is simple and a fun way for kids to begin to understand how multiplying works. This is a great way for a child to figure out a difficult multiplication problem they may be struggling with as well.
Need creative teaching ideas?
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