"Sum" Halloween Fun

Yesterday we played a Halloween Addition game.  We had to roll a dice.  Move that number of spaces, in any direction, on the game board. 

 

 

 

 

Then, we had to solve the addition equation that was in the square we landed on.  Lastly, we had to color in corresponding square on the our hundreds chart. (Our goal was to fill all squares 1-14 on our hundreds chart first.)

 

For example: If the equation was 4+5, then we would color in the number 9 square on our hundreds chart.

 



 

After we played the game, Mrs. Wanke had us write the answers to each equation on the game board.  Then, we graphed how many times we got a particular answer or sum. 

 

For example, we had only 1 square that had an equation with the answer or sum 1.  So on our graph we put one X.  (See the picture of our graph below.)

 

 

 

 

After looking at the information on the graph we discussed how this information could change the way we played the game.  Our goal was to fill in all the squares 1-14 on our hundreds chart.  If we had a choice to go left and land on a square that would have the answer of 1 or go right and land on a square that would have the answer 9, we would choose to go left and land on the square that would allow us to fill in the 1 square.  Since there are more squares that have the answer of 9 it would be more strategic for us to go to the square with the answer of 1 .  The odds of us getting a square with the answer of 9 is greater than our chances of getting a square with the answer of 1.

 

 

Today, we played the same game again, but with a twist and a change!  The twist was, we could use the graph we created yesterday to help guide our decisions and help us think more strategically.  The change was, instead of filling in the number 3 square if we landed on a square with the answer of 3, we had to fill in three squares on the board.

 

 

 

The goal today was to fill in all the square on our hundreds chart.  However, when we got to the end we had to be careful!  If we had only 4 more squares left to color in and rolled a 5, we could not color in the squares.  We had to get the exact amount! Is Mrs. Wanke crazy or what?  This is where strategy and the graph really helped us.  If we had the choice to go left and land on a square that would give us the answer of 3 or go right and land on a square that would give us the answer of 2, it would be more strategic to go right and land on the square that would give us a 2.  If we went and landed on the square with a 3, in order for us to win the game we would have to wait and land on that one square to give us the answer of 1. (We know better than that now!)

 

We also discussed that the strategy in the beginning of today's game was to go in the direction on the game board that would give us the greatest sum so that we could fill up our 100's board more quickly. Then, our strategy changed at the end of the game when we had to plot out how we would get the exact amount of squares colored in.

 



 

 

Working hard to fill up that hundreds board.

 

Thinking hard about which way to go!