Tackling Tic-Tac-Toe

Games lubricate the body and the mind.

– Benjamin Franklin

At the beginning of the month I posted my Reverse Bingo idea for making bingo  more educationally involved game. Yesterday when I made a table to insert into a powerpoint, it reminded me of a tic-tac-toe board. I instantly had an idea for making this game have an educational aspect. My new game is initially an independent practice page.

On this paper all of the differences are 8 or 9. Once they are solved there will be a row of the same difference as the winner. Do I think some children might be able to figure out which ones are smaller? I would be thrilled if students were able to make generalizations and comparisons based on the similarities of the problems! That is higher order thinking in action!

Here is a trickier example! Which is the winner 64 or 48?

I am thinking I could extend this by giving 2 students a list of problem choices to choose from, for example:

Finally, it would be fun to assign a number for x and a number for o and let the partners brainstorm their own problems for each box. I would provide some incentive or rule to make more challenging problems the better selection. Anyone can multiply by 1 or add 1! Real thinking should be encouraged and rewarded.

Now my goal is to find some way to use this idea for language arts! Any ideas?

Ann