Teacher Talk: Magic Number

In this edition of Teacher Talk, I’ve invited Jennifer Rubin, a 3rd grade teacher at Brushy Creek Elementary School, to share a super fun game her students have been playing to build computational fluency together.

Here’s Jennifer:

One. Two. Three. Shoot!!

This is the highly animated chatter that can be heard in our 3rd grade classroom when we are playing Magic Number. After finding this game on the Instagram account of purely.primary, I tweaked it a little and knew I had to try it with my crew. It was an instant hit.

The premise is quite simple. Students are divided into groups of three and sit in a circle facing each other. I call out the Magic Number that they are trying to attain with the sum of their 3 hands. They do a quick, “One, two, three, shoot!“ and each display a number of fingers on one hand. They quickly find the sum of all the fingers showing to determine if it matches the Magic Number. If it does, their team gets a point. Teams repeat these steps over and over trying to make the same Magic Number and earn more points. The first team to earn 3 points “wins” the opportunity to pick the next Magic Number.

Here’s where the good stuff happens. Before I announce the target number, I explain that they will each be using only one hand to represent a number. We discuss the possible choices (0-5) and more importantly, we discuss what the maximum and minimum sum could be. This conversation generated lots of good mathematical debate and support of ideas in my classroom:  

“The smallest total would be 3.”

“Not really because what if all three people put out their fist?  That means all zeros. Then the total is zero.”

“Oh, that’s right.”

And a comment from a particularly astute student: “Yeah, but I bet she won’t call zero as the total because that’s too easy to get and the game would be over.” 

Clearly, I was on to something good before we even started the game. For the first round, I called out 8 as the Magic Number. Fingers started flying and sums were excitedly – and disappointingly – being called out in groups around the room.  

One of my favorite conversations came when one member of a group thought they missed the target number:  

“Ugh!”

“No look.  You had zero.  He has 5 and I have 3.  5 + 3 + 0 = 8!!  We got it!”

“Yay!”

This game of math fluency has endless permutations and uses:

• You can switch up the number of players to suit your class. You can do groups of 2 and work on multiplication fact fluency.
• Teams can play for a set length of time and keep track of how many points they get.
• You can play in the hallway while you’re waiting for whatever it is we sometimes have to wait for in the halls with our class. 🙂
• It can be a quick 5 – 10 minute time filler when your amazing whatever lesson ends more quickly than expected and it’s not quite time to head to Specials (or does that just happen to me?).
• Students can take the fun home and play with their families. Waiting in a restaurant is the perfect venue for this portable, fast-paced, no-fuss game.  

As you tweak this game and make it your own, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Share the greatness with me on Twitter. Great teaching is all about the sharing and modifying of ideas. I hope this creates a little Magic in your classroom.

If you try out the game with your students (or even your own children at home!) be sure to tag me in your tweets as well, @EMathRRISD.

Thank you to Jennifer Rubin for opening up her classroom and sharing her craft with the rest of us! We’re all better together!