Defensive Multiplication

What You Need:

• Deck of playing cards, face cards removed
• 4 sheets of paper
• Tape
• Pencil
• Scratch paper
• Black marker
• 2 Players, or 2 teams

What You Do:

1. Have your child and her friends create a game board by drawing a 2 x 2 grid on each piece of paper. Tape the 4 sheets of paper together on the back and create a 4 x 4 grid.
2. Announce that aces = 1.
3. Ask one of the players to remove all of the face cards from the deck. Then divide the cards they removed into red and black cards. Each player gets either the red or black cards.
4. The game consists of 5 rounds. A round of play is made up of 16 turns (8 for each player) and features a different target product. You can decide on whatever target products you'd like, but the target products we used are: 60, 72, 84, 90, and 96. These number have lots of factors so they're easier to work with.
5. The two players must face each other. Players take turns placing any one of their cards into one of the spaces on the game board.
6. Whoever completes a line of 4 cards in a row in any direction (including diagonally), successfully creating the target product, wins one point. An example of 84: 7 x 2 x 3 x 2 = 84.
7. Once the board is full the round is complete. Clear the board and redistribute the cards back to the players before starting the next round.
8. The player who has the most points at the end of 5 rounds wins!