Family Math Night - You Must Cross The River!
During the semester, my class signed up for a few Family Math Nights where we, the students, taught the kids at the event how to play a math based game. While some might have a little bit of work that they would need to do to come up with a math game, but I have been sitting on something for the entire semester and before. You see, one of my favorite hobbies is a little game by the name of Dungeons and Dragons, a very popular role-playing game.
Now one might ask, "Dungeons and Dragons? What makes that a good math game?" It's a good question, but it all is based on the method that the game is carried out. Most everything substantial is run through die rolls which dictates whether the action of the character is successful. Ultimately, D&D is just a probability-based game with fantasy flavor, and my partner and I leaned into that.
Naturally, some other questions might be "Doesn't that game take forever?" or "Isn't that game a bit too complicated for 1st graders?" There's definitely some merit to those claims, which my partner and I attempted to remedy. In regards to time, we condensed the game into a single task that the group needed to perform: to get the group across a chasm with multiple options to cross. Some of these options were better catered towards different characters, such as using a character's strength to knock down a tree to form a bridge to the other side. In regards to understanding the game, we boiled down the numbers they needed to know to three different things: strength, dexterity, and mental. Each character had a different number that they would add to the die they would roll and each task would have a number displayed and which stat they needed to use. This made the game quite simple and every group that played had a good grasp of what they needed to do.
Due to the nature of our game, we ended up having a lot of kids coming by to play our game. At our first school that we visited, a majority of the players seemed to be boys, but I am unsure whether that was because my partner and I are guys or if it was the content of the game itself. At our second school, we had more of a balance of kids that attended the table. Most of the kids ended up sticking to the options we had on the board, despite letting them know that they could make up something we hadn't thought of. Out of all the kids, I would say fewer than five of them took us up on the offer to make up something new.
Personally, I enjoyed the sessions quite a bit, as I was able to work with the kids in a fun and creative way that still used math, and I think that the kids enjoyed it as well, with a few kids wanting to come back and play again after running through it once.
Now one might ask, "Dungeons and Dragons? What makes that a good math game?" It's a good question, but it all is based on the method that the game is carried out. Most everything substantial is run through die rolls which dictates whether the action of the character is successful. Ultimately, D&D is just a probability-based game with fantasy flavor, and my partner and I leaned into that.
Naturally, some other questions might be "Doesn't that game take forever?" or "Isn't that game a bit too complicated for 1st graders?" There's definitely some merit to those claims, which my partner and I attempted to remedy. In regards to time, we condensed the game into a single task that the group needed to perform: to get the group across a chasm with multiple options to cross. Some of these options were better catered towards different characters, such as using a character's strength to knock down a tree to form a bridge to the other side. In regards to understanding the game, we boiled down the numbers they needed to know to three different things: strength, dexterity, and mental. Each character had a different number that they would add to the die they would roll and each task would have a number displayed and which stat they needed to use. This made the game quite simple and every group that played had a good grasp of what they needed to do.
Due to the nature of our game, we ended up having a lot of kids coming by to play our game. At our first school that we visited, a majority of the players seemed to be boys, but I am unsure whether that was because my partner and I are guys or if it was the content of the game itself. At our second school, we had more of a balance of kids that attended the table. Most of the kids ended up sticking to the options we had on the board, despite letting them know that they could make up something we hadn't thought of. Out of all the kids, I would say fewer than five of them took us up on the offer to make up something new.
Personally, I enjoyed the sessions quite a bit, as I was able to work with the kids in a fun and creative way that still used math, and I think that the kids enjoyed it as well, with a few kids wanting to come back and play again after running through it once.
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