Learning about Math with a Deck of Cards

One of the best low cost math learning items you can have at home or in the classroom is a deck of cards. 

There are so many simple things you can do with a deck (especially if you make it a “math deck” as Denise at Let’s Play Math calls them, which is a regular deck with jacks, queens, kings and jokers removed). 

Call the ace a one and practice identifying numbers and counting from one to ten. 

Use cards to count out a number of items to reinforce one to one correspondence.

Draw a card and then count up or down from that number. Or arrange cards by suits and then put the cards in number order. 

Pull several cards and add, subtract, multiply or divide those numbers. Or draw several cards and write out and say the number that you get (so drawing a four, six and two would give you 462). 

And of course you can play lots of games with playing cards that help reinforce math concepts. 

Math Geek Mama has a great collection of math games you can play with cards for learning various math concepts, including sorting and counting, addition and subtraction, place value, prime numbers, fractions and decimals, multiplication, exponents, order of operations and metric conversions. 

One of the ones that caught my eye because it’s such a great thing to do with a couple of kids, or a kid and a parent, or in pairs in a classroom, is playing variations on war. This idea comes from Denise Gaskin’s Let’s Play Math, and it goes beyond the basic whose card is higher to include ideas like adding two cards together and the winner is the higher number.

Of course there are tons of variations there, too, because you could also subtract, multiply, make numbers into fractions, decide some suits or colors are positive or negative numbers and more. 

Check out both posts for lots of fun ways to play and learn math with a deck of cards!

[Photo: Math Geek Mama]