Countdown....Guess The Number Game

I am in true holiday mode.... I nearly forgot it was Friday! Don't you love when that happens?!

This game is one that I haven't played with my kids this year.. probably easier for slightly older kids, or at least Receptions who have been at school a little longer than a term! It is fun though and dead simple to set up and play.. you only need pencil and paper! 

I actually play it as a 'warm up' for our Maths lessons, but it works well in pairs too.

The game is called Countdown. To play, one person thinks of a number and writes it down. The other player writes the numbers 1-7 down (this is the number of questions they can ask, so you can adjust the number to alter the difficulty of the game). When we play it as a class on the IWB, I use this template instead of just writing the numbers down...

We 'pop' a balloon every time a question is asked... the aim is to guess the number before all the balloons are gone

Basically, the player who is guessing asks yes/no questions to try and work out which number the other player has written down. Each time a question is asked, a number is crossed off. In a way, it's like hangman, but without the picture and using numbers instead of words!

It's a really great game for getting kids to think strategically, it's worth spending a bit of time talking about the different types of questions you can ask and discussing which type of questions are most 'efficient' and can get you to the answer the quickest. It's also an awesome way to use a whole range of maths language... less than/more than/ in between/factor of....and heaps more!