Fit the Facts

Grades 3 and up. 2-4 players

“Fit the Facts” is a fun game to play to practice multiplication and division facts. The students need to fit their facts-cards on the board with a dice roll. The game helps students see multiplication facts as repeated addition and gain automaticity with repetition and practice. They can also use and practice the commutative, associative, and distributive properties of multiplication.

The game provides an opportunity for strategic thinking and planning as well. The students don’t need to know (memorize) the facts to play. Low floor, high ceiling game.

Goal: Place the most of your fact-cards on the board.

Material:

• Print out of the game board. (provided)
• Print out of the fact cards/strips. (provided)
• Two 10 side dice or playing cards only the numbers 2-9 and the kings and queens. Learn how to build your own dice here.

How to play:

There are 4 colors of fact cards. If 3 or 4 players are playing each player takes one color. If only two players are playing one player takes the cold colors, green and blue and the other takes the warm colors yellow and orange. The game uses only the facts 2-9.

If you are playing with younger players or you just want to keep the game simple you can use the “smaller” multiplication facts cards to start with. For example, tables 2,3,4, and 5.

Each player starts on a side on the square board. The players take turns rolling the two dice. They multiply the two numbers they get and try to find that fact in their cards.

They can use the commutative property of multiplication, (for example 2×8 could be 8+8 or 2+2+2+2+2+2+2+2)

the distributive property of multiplication, (for example, when you roll for 5×6 and you have 2×6 and 3×6 you can place down the two cards),

and the associative property of multiplication that says that the grouping of the numbers does not matter when multiplying a series of values together. For example 3×4=3x2x2=6×2=12. So if you roll 3 and 4 =12 you can play 2×6 or 6×2.

When the players have a matching card they place it on the board/table starting at their side. Their first card must be placed on the first row of their side, horizontally, vertically, or diagonally. After the first move, they can place a card anywhere as long as it touches one of their other cards.

Each new card placed by a player needs to be touching another of their cards on the side or corner.

The 1 and 10 numbers on the dice ( and the king and queen if you are using playing cards) are the wild rolls. This means that when you roll 1 or 10 on one of the dice you can choose any number 2-9 to replace it with. For example, if you roll 1 and 5 you can choose any number of 5s. (2×5, 3×5,4×5 and so on) Same with 10. If for example, you roll 10 on one dice and 7 on the other you can choose any number of 7s. If you get lucky and you roll one or ten (wild rolls) on both dice (1 and 1 or 1 and 10 or 10and 10 ) then you get to remove one of the opponent’s cards from the board. ( this is very useful when another player blocks your cars and you cannot connect new ones.)

Here are the pdfs for the game board and the cards. You can print the bigger version if you like, just choose the last files. Laminating the cards and the board will make them last longer. You can also paste the game board on magnetic paper and add magnetic paper strips at the back of the fact cars. It is a bit more work but it makes a big difference as the tiles don’t move around and it is easier to play.

We hope you like the game. It is a bit of work to put it together but students enjoy it. Make sure you check out our other print to play games to practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, and more. Please like and subscribe.