Mathmagical Monday: Make 10!

First a funny from my 10 yo, Momo--

Math-U-See Zeta, Lesson 7:
Casey had a piece of string one meter long. Because she was very bored, she cut it into 1,000 pieces. If the pieces were of equal length, how long was each piece?

Momo's answer? Very small and then she had to vacuum.

Pyramid or Make Ten
This is a simple (despite the length it took me to explain) and fun math card game that we've been playing for years. It helps children learn to "make 10" which is a useful skill when adding.

Using a regular card deck, take out the face cards and jokers.

Lay out a pyramid shape with the cards face down. One card at the top, two on the next row, slightly overlapping the first on the bottom corners. Repeat this until you have five cards face down at the bottom of your pyramid. Finally, lay a sixth row, face up.

Can you make any tens? If your child is just learning their addition math facts, it is helpful to have a little chart with 1+9, 2+8, etc on it for reference. Oh, 10s count as ten too. Remove any 10s and any pairs that make ten. Put them aside in a discard pile.

Now turn over any face down cards that have both lower corners empty (no cards on the row below covering them). Can you make any tens? If yes, set those cards aside in the discard pile. Check the next face up card in your hand. Also, turn over any card that has been uncovered in your pyramid.

Once you can't make anymore tens, turn over another set of three from your draw pile. Once you've gone through your draw pile, you can do it again, turning over three cards each time. At the very end we go through it one card at a time.

The game ends when you can no longer make ten. You actually "win" if you no cards left in the pyramid.

We would've played this today, in Latin, but I can't find a deck of regular cards! Yesterday we played Uno (Unus!) and Phase 10 -- in Latin, of course. It naturally led to talking about color words...but that is a post for another day!