Caterpillar game maths

Any player with a block on a mushroom space touching the sum rolled receives an extra block of his or her color. Each turn also includes the opportunity to place accumulated blocks in order to build the longest caterpillar on the board. The game ends when there are no more spaces available on the board.

Players then reference their dice rolls on the frequency chart to determine the most frequently rolled number.

That number is the "bird," which eats the caterpillars at the end of the game. Players must remove pieces from any space around the number that has been determined to be the bird. The player with the longest caterpillar intact at the end of this explosion is the winner! The learning goals in Caterpillar are for all students to master the related probability and statistics content by developing strategies to win the game.

How to : Through the first few game plays, your students might begin to realize the distinction between a "good" and "bad" first move, based on where they place their first two blocks on mushroom spaces. You can help students notice that these spaces correspond to the most and least frequently rolled two dice sums, which is a concept that students are introduced to in the game, as they start noticing that sevens are rolled much more frequently than twelves, and so on.

Students quickly make the visual connection between the theoretical probability of rolling two six-sided dice many times and the experimental probability of the same event through rolling the dice in the game and recording them in the frequency chart. Have all classes record each dice roll on a larger frequency chart in the classroom, and a bell curve begins to appear as classes compile all the data through many rounds of gameplay. This allows students to make connections between the traditional content and the real world experience of the mathematics in games.

The ultimate goal in Caterpillar is for students to apply their mathematical knowledge by working together to develop modifications to improve the game. This challenge embodies one of my favorite phrases: "Math is a verb.

You can do either of these:. You can then have students draft quantitative research questions based on the parts of the game they wish to change, such as:. Groups can compile data to justify their Caterpillar mods by asking their research questions to classmates, peers, and other teachers and staff familiar with the game.

Some of my students' past modifications included:. This modding project allows students to stretch their understanding of the mathematical concepts in an engaging, challenging context that reflects their interests as both gamers and designers. Having ownership of their mathematical explorations allows students to develop and sharpen their existing skillsets in order to meet and hopefully exceed new challenges.

Through experiments with setting appropriate goals and increasing expectations for students by providing different levels of challenge in a lesson or activity, you can model the process of continuous learning, and help students learn how to keep challenging themselves. The small sliders give you a smaller number range, suitable for year olds, whilst the larger sliders give you an option to play with numbers up to , more suited to year olds.

If you want to use consecutve numbers you can take the tick out of the red check box, this can be especially useful if you want to order numbers through the s barrier, e.

Step 3: Press 'go'. Then drag the leaf buds onto the branch in the correct order. A correctly completed branch will encourage a caterpillar to eat your leaves and transform into a butterfly!

Those of you with eagle eyes might spot the butterfly's bedtime reading, 'Butterfly Basics'.