Addition Concentration Game

My kids love playing math games with cards! I like these games because most kids have the materials they need at home to keep on playing and practicing. Addition Concentration is one of my favorites. 

Kids work with a partner. They look through a deck of cards and find pairs of cards that add up to their target number. In the picture above, the target number is ten. It's easy to differentiate by giving students different target numbers. 

For a traditional game of Addition Concentration, players place cards on the table face down.  Partners take turns flipping two cards over.   If the numbers on the cards add up to 10, the player places the cards into the addition sentence and writes the addition fact.   Their partner then reverses the order of the cards and writes the related addition fact.    (I like to use whiteboards, but using Magna Doodles or paper and pencil also works well.)  

To switch it up a bit, try "Clean Sweep" memory.  The sweeper says, "I can sweep the board with 3 pairs."   Their partner then puts 3 pairs of cards, face up, on the table and gives the sweeper a few seconds to study the pairs.  The partner then flips the cards face down and the sweeper attempts  to find all the pairs that add up to the target number.  Partners switch roles and play continues. 

I like this variation because players are not guessing where numbers may be; they study the cards and build memory skills as they try to recall the location of pairs of cards.   If a child is able to sweep the board with 3 pairs, he/she can try to sweep the board with 4 pairs during his/her next turn.   Kids take great pride in sweeping the board with an increasing number of cards.

Because cards are readily available with so many different pictures, this can easily work into a variety of themes just by changing the deck of cards.

I also love to play with ten frame cards!

I hope you find this game useful.  Do you have favorite addition card games?   

I'd love to hear about them!          Anne