Math Games That Make You Think

I was minding my own business when I got a ping on Twitter. Another person telling me they had a great game I needed to see. I decided to give it a go. It was good! It was making me think. I hopped on a call with David Tymm, we chatted, and I’m excited to tell you about his great games.

David has done something remarkable with his games. He noticed how kids were learning their timetables and wondered why we teach them using memorization instead of reasoning. 

David, founder of NumberClub, pointed out that: “Reasoning is more reliable than memorization. Memories fade, they change, you lose things, you lose track of details. Reasoning is also much more fun than memorization.”

Yes!!

NumberClub bases their games on developing reasoning which aligns with the work we do at Math is FigureOutAble so well. 

His efforts started with a game called Stick and Split. An excellent game, built on the foundation of  “is it fun” and “will students learn something”. He admits to making games that:

1. Children played and learned absolutely nothing from.
2. Children learned from but wouldn’t play - because children know when they are being made to do a load of math.

David noticed that in most memorization games, we’re asking students some questions and they have no agency. Someone tells them if they’re right or wrong. Stick and Split, however, gives students a reason to care about learning the numbers as they are a useful thing to learn to get further in the game.

He says: “It’s the difference between ‘I’m wrong’ and ‘that’s wrong’. In Stick and Split the feedback will be shown on the screen so students have the agency to make a new move. The learning is done in the trial and error.”

Thousands of children around the world are now playing this game. It's a math game that never asks a math question.

I am enamoured by this game because important mathematical concepts come up subtly.

1. The idea of prime numbers - where they’re excluded from the sequence of products.
2. The commutative property - early in each level.
3. The focus on products - unlike traditional timestables, we’re not dealing with a bunch of factors, we’re actually dealing with products which are getting bigger slowly.

NumberClub has also released two other games called Brick Up and Number Ramble. Both building key mathematical concepts through engaging games.

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