Playing Card Math – Up And Down From Zero

Up and Down from Zero is a team game that reinforces negative number sense.  If you have an odd number of players, the oldest player should take the role of coach for both teams.

Seat all the players in a circle.  Start with one player as a Team A player, the next player belongs to Team B, the third player is on Team A, the fourth Team B and so on.

Now shuffle and deal out all the cards face down to the players.  (Even if all the players do not receive the same number of cards, the teams will have an equal number of cards.)

The first player (Team A)  turns up the first card in his or her stack and calls out the number. (Face cards can represent 10 or J-11, Q-12, K-13 depending on the skill level of the players.)  The next player (Team B) turns up his or her top card and subtracts the value from the first player's card.  The following player (Team A) will add his or her card to the total, the next player (Team B) will subtract from the total.

• Player One turns over a 2

• Player Two turns over a 5 and calls out negative 3

• Player Three turns over a 10 and calls out 7

• Player Four turns over a 4 and calls out 3

Continue turning over cards and either adding or subtracting depending on which team is up.  After all the cards have been played, Team A wins if the final number is positive; Team B wins if the final number is negative.