Love them or hate them, calculators are here to stay. One of the ugliest things I saw as a math educator happened in my first year of full-time teaching. I was watching my students as they did a test. This group of students were doing university level math as part of their economics degree.
I wandered over to see how one of my best students was performing. This student, I was confident, would do well in the test, and indeed get an A for the subject. I was right. But what I saw as I looked over her shoulder will stick in my mind until the end of my career.
The student had almost completed a difficult problem. All that remained to get the right answer was to multiply one and a half by two. A piece of cake, for that student's ability and academic level. Then, to my horror, the student reached for the calculator, and punched in the keys : 1 . 5 x 2 =
I could hardly believe it. How could this student be doing so well in math, even up to university level, and still need a calculator for a result like that? Amazing!
Calculators : A Blessing Or A Curse?
There's no question that calculators are a useful tool. Kids should be familiar with them before leaving school, if they are to function effectively in modern society. A calculator makes arithmetic faster and more accurate, by transferring part of the brainwork to electronic circuitry. What is the effect of all this on a student learning math?
In one way, a calculator is like a crutch. A student struggling with arithmetic might use a calculator to confirm the results of their own efforts. In this way, the student will gain confidence, until they no longer need the calculator for that level of problem. On the other hand, a student might become dependent on the crutch, unwilling to try to walk without it, and eventually losing the ability to walk correctly as his or her mental math muscles atrophy.
Calculator games!
Below I give a couple of games involving the use of a calculator. The goal with these games is to put kids in a situation where using the calculator helps them with their math, in a fun and interesting way. They use calculators in these games to explore numbers, and so gain some kind of intuition for the relationships between them as they manipulate them to achieve the goal set for them.
- This Angle Geometry Quiz tests your knowledge of a few facts relating to angles. Race against the clock as you prove your skills! Topics covered include the interior angles of triangles and quadrilaterals, angles near parallel lines, lines meeting at a point and others.
- This is one of two math tricks on this site that let you guess someone's birthday after a sequence of mathematical operations.
- Another game where a calculator might help and not hinder is the Make Numbers Arithmetic Game, where the child must generate as many numbers as possible using only the four given digits, and the basic operations of addition, subtraction, division and multiplication.
- The Upside-Down Calculator Word Game is recommended for kids in fifth grade and fourth grade, and maybe also third grade. Younger children may find it too challenging - although my son's grade one teacher recently gave an exercise like this one to her class! The aim is to find numbers that make words when keyed into an upside-down calculator. See the game's page for more details.
- The Easter Date Worksheets allow a child to compute the date of Easter Sunday in any year at all, with no math more complex than long division. Alternatively, try younger kids on the simpler versions of the worksheets - fewer calculations, smaller numbers, but they only work in certain centuries.
- This free "fours" contestclosed on the 20th of October, 2009. The idea was to make as many numbers as possible using the digit '4' (as many times as you like) and the operations plus, minus, divide and times. Soon I'll upload the contest results, and ideas for how you can run a contest like this one in your own classroom.
- MathGolf is played on the computer, and the high scores for each month are recorded on the website. However, as the tips for parents and teachers explains, your children will do better if they spend time away from the computer with a pencil and paper, before coming back to the computer to enter their play.
- In the Magical Calculator Birthday Trick and the "Threes" Math Trick, one child gives a sequence of arithmetic instructions to another, then performs a few simple mental steps on the result. Almost like magic, the other's birthday (or another secret number) appears as the result of the sum! Good for fourth grade kids and up.
- In the Math Architect Online Game the goal is to design an apartment with the given area. The catch? Each room is a square, and you must have as few rooms as possible! This makes the game challenging enough to keep kids occupied, and deep enough to keep them learning as they play. There is also a high scores table showing the best players each month, year and for all time.
- Try this Powers puzzle, an exercise where kids explore numbers with their calculator, and try to spot patterns in the numbers they explore.
- By working though the Rice and Chessboard Worksheets, kids can get a feel for how fast numbers grow when they are repeatedly doubled. The worksheets are based on a modern version of an old story, where a man was awarded a quantity of grains of rice for each square on a chessboard, with each square having twice as many grains as the one before.
Well, that's all for now, but stay tuned! I'm continually adding new games to this site. Even now, ideas for more calculator games are percolating in my mind....
Yours, Dr Mike.
Games