Digit Duel

Do you assess math fluency? If so.... is it timed? It's always a hot conversation amongst teachers. One thing for sure the older teachers at our school tell us that our students need to be more fluent in math facts. Well to increase their math facts I've been using Digit Duel and Digit Duel Subtraction. The students just LOVE this game and beg to play.

Students love dueling math facts on ipads but I wanted to try it without electronics . Digit Duel and Digit Duel Subtraction is a fun and exciting way for children to learn addition and subtraction facts. My kids like to play if finished with math stations early. They stack cards in the middle and take turns flipping over the cards. The student who answers the fact first keeps the card. If there is a tie I tell my students to play rock paper scissors to see who keeps the card. Winner of the game is the player with the most cards.

I also like to play whole group when we have a couple of minutes to spare. I sit half of the students facing the other half. Basically I have two rows of 9 and the math partners are face to face. I have a side A and a side B. We see which side can earn the most math fact cards. I put around 6-8 cards in the middle of each set of two students. When I say DUEL students duel. Once all cards are used, we stop and count the cards for team A. Next we count the cards for team B. We add up the scores and keep a tally.  Next we pass the stack once to the left and continue to play. Sometimes we say whichever side has the most points lines up first or something simple like that!

Digit Duel Cards cover addition facts- Making Ten, Doubles, Near Doubles, Identity Property of Addition, Associative Property, Commutative Property, Adding Three Addends, etc.

Digit Duel Subtraction Cards have 23 pages of subtraction problems.

I'm working on  multiplication and division. You will see them in my shop soon. 

Digit Duel is on sale for $1.50.

Making 10 Card Trick

This is a fabulous game/trick for a math center. The students just love trying to make a 10 and it's great practice making 10s. The students would much rather play this trick than completing worksheets any day in my classroom. I think it would be great for 1st or 2nd grade.

For this game you use one deck of cards but remove the jokers.
Face cards- King, Queen, Jack, all equal 10
Ace= 1

The object of the game is to make sums of 10.

First have someone secretly remove two cards and place to the side. (addends) The addends must be greater than 10 when added together. For example, a student could have removed a 6 and a 7. Do not remove face cards or 10s. These two cards will be the missing addends in the very end of the trick.

The students start  by placing three cards out on the table. If a 10 can be made you will cover the two cards that equal 10 ( 2/8, 3/7, 4/6, 5/5, A/9) with cards from the stack. Since Kings, Queens, Jacks, and 10s all equal 10 you only cover them with one card. If a 10 can not be made start a new stack.


When all the cards have been laid out in stacks. You will then find the missing addends that make 10. These groups will be added together. There will be two extra stacks that don't equal 10. The missing stacks that don't make a 10 are the missing addends to the cards the student secretly removed from the beginning.


Here is a little video of my nieces playing this game. This was the first time showing them so it's not perfect.