One of my favorite creations is my Playing Card Math Mats shown in the picture above. Isn't it funny how she chose to shade in the fraction? She was a wiz at partitioning fractions after going through the deck of cards.
Perfect for Tutors or the Classroom!
These playing card math mats are perfect for tutors or for centers in the classroom. They involve minimal set up and the directions are easy to read. For centers, all you would need to do is model quickly what would be done in that center and then let the kids have at it.
I've also discovered that these math mats make a great early finisher activity. You could store them in one location and let the kids browse through the different mats and choose some. The mats are categorized into several different grade levels allowing you to differentiate for students as well.
Let me show you the anatomy of a Playing Card Math Mat…
Each mat has been meticulously aligned with the Common Core Standards for Mathematics. There are detailed instructions, a title of the skill being worked on, and plenty of space to write in.
I like to print my math mats out and then slide them into page protectors. This allows me to use dry erase markers so that they can be used over and over again. They also store nicely in a binder with page protectors.
Math Mats Save Time
My time is so valuable and I am sure you can relate. These math mats have saved me a ton of time in planning. I can go over my lesson plans from the previous week and pull exactly what I need or in the moment when I see a hole in their math knowledge, I can pull out one of these mats and work on it right then. You should check them out, as always…I like to give people a full preview. You can check it out here for 3-5 Playing Card Math Mats and 6-8 Playing Card Math Mats.
I think they are so awesome! I wanted to do a giveaway for some of my math mats. There are two giveaways you can enter: 3-5 Playing Card Math Mats and 6-8 Playing Card Math Mats. Enter both, that is totally okay with me!
Enter to win starting today, March 8th through March 11th 11:59 PM Central Time. Winners will be notified via email. If I don't hear from the winners within 48 hours, other winners will be chosen. I will be verifying Pinterest entries, so if you are chosen and I find that you didn't pin anything of mine, I will move onto another winner.
Thanks for entering! If you don't want to wait to win these awesome math mats, you can pick up a set in my store.
While I haven’t used playing cards as often as I would like, I have used them for all operations using a format of the card game “War”. Thank you for the opportunity to win this set of math mats.
Toni Nicholson
chief9937@Yahoo.com
I’ve used them for prime and composite numbers – flip 2 cards to make a 2 digit number and tell whether it is prime or composite. I’ve also done the same thing for factors and multiples – flip 2 cards and either list the factors or give the next ____ multiples.
Jen
Runde’s Room
We use playing cards for multiplication math wars…but this is a great idea! We were doing something similar to this, this week with dice! These look great:) ( Pinterest wasn’t working today:( I’ll try to come back:)
I love to play a game called King in the Corner. It helps with sequencing, number recognition and critical thinking. My 4th graders even play it a recess sometimes!
Peggy
mrspaulson@gmail.com
Such great ideas! I would love to hear the directions for King in the Corner Peggy. Thanks for coming by.
i like to have students practice skills learned during center time.
I love using games to reinforce content skills! I’m so glad that I have a snow day today and had time to look through my Facebook posts, which led me to your Facebook page and blog! I’m following your card games board on Pinterest now and will be checking you out on TpT, too. I love your ideas for learning games! These math mats would be great!
The link to your Pintrest account comes back with a 404 error message. Unable to find you with a search either.
Thank you for the contest. We’re in test prep mode right now (and tired of it), so I’m planning to tackle one of our major strands each week for the next three weeks–using ‘games’–yes we are done with the book! Your product falls in the fun things category.
Weird, Pinterest must be acting up! Thank you for even trying it! Best of luck using games. Your students are going to have a blast.
It can be as simple as having students add the two cards together, to as complex as using the cards to make fractions and decide which is bigger!
We use cards for place value war, multiplication games, adding and subtracting~just about any math concept you need to teach. They are cheap and make differentiating so easy!
Thanks for sharing all these great ideas.
I’m sure I’ll be adding to it as time goes on. I use cards for A LOT of my math activities!