Boxes

This is a unique twist on an old pencil and paper game. The focus is on addition, subtraction and multiplication, as well as adding a little strategic thinking and problem solving.

The children work in pairs on a 'dotty' sheet, playing a version of boxes... they take it in turns to join two horizontally or vertically adjacent dots by a line.

A player that completes a fourth side forms a finished square; this player now shades that box in and makes a note of the number inside it.

The game ends when all of the boxes have been completed, the player now total the numbers they have 'collected' and the winner is the one with the highest score.

Simple and straightforward for young learners getting to grips with adding 1s, 2s, 3s and 4s. However, the dotty boards can offer more challenge than that. What about asking that the children multiply the numbers together as they go, keeping a running total.

Clearly, the boards are not restricted to simple numbers, the downloadable file includes a selection of boards with negative numbers, together with a blank version. This latter sheet could easily be adapted to include larger numbers, decimal numbers or fractions. Children could even create their own boards by rolling dice, selecting digit cards or using our squashy boxes or digit window frames to fill the board with random numbers.

The download includes 16 different dotty boards (4 per A4 page) together with teaching notes and a set of blank dotty boards for you own customisation.

Mathsticks+ members, go to the members dashboard to access a range of additional boards.

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