Poison! Race to 100

Poison! Race to 100

In the upper grade Math Club we played Poison! Race to 100. Here are instructions to continue play at home:

Materials Needed:

• Base 10 manipulatives: 1 mat per child and a bunch of strips (10s) and units (1s) - those pictured can be purchased from The Math Learning Center.
• 2 Dice labeled 0-5 and 1-6

Directions
Each player gets a mat (red 100s grid shown above) as a playing board. Player #1 rolls the two dice, adds the numbers, and collects that many base ten pieces. The player can choose to keep those pieces, adding them to the playing board (the red mat), or roll again and collect additional pieces. BUT, if the dice rolls a 0 (POISON!) he loses everything in that turn.  (Once pieces are on the mat, they are safe.) Each time the player rolls, she must exchange base ten pieces from that turn so that she has the least number of pieces in her possession. So, for example, if in one roll she gets 8 and then in a second roll she gets 4, she must trade in 10 units for 1 strip (ten) with a total of 1 strip and 2 units. The same is true of the board. As pieces go into the safe zone/red board, they are exchanged for the smallest number of pieces.

As students play, they might consider:

• How much do you have?
• How many do you still need to reach 100?
• How many more/less do you have than the other players?
• Challenge: What is the probability of getting poisoned (a zero)?