I have found that most students like to have a hands on approach and I try to find as many ways as possible to get students up and moving, so this was the perfect opportunity for me to create an engaging activity for them.
I came up with a game called Prime vs. Composite where students will be given the opportunity to pick Prime Numbers out of 100 cards to help their team win with the most points.
The objective was simple, retrieve as many prime numbers as you can within 12 minutes. Sounds easy, right??? Well there had to be a catch, and believe me there is. For every prime card they picked up they got to add these numbers together, for example, if they picked up 23 and 7, they already had 30 points. However, if they picked up a composite card they would have to subtract that number from their total prime number points. So, if a group had 30 points when they added up their prime numbers, but had a total of 40 points when they added up their composite numbers they would have a score of -10. Unfortunately after playing our game today, all 5 of my groups had a negative score, which in a way tells me that they don't understand prime numbers and we need to go over this skill again.
My kids enjoyed our game and were happy to get up and move. They definitely want to play again to try and beat their scores. I have a very competitive class this year. Below are some pictures of my students playing the game.
Coloring in the numbers they picked up on their hundreds chart
The game in action
"What number did you say to go get?"
"What numbers are prime?"
Waiting for their teammate to come back with a number
If you are interested in this game you can find it here:
