Using Playing Cards to Practice Math Facts

A deck of playing cards can be great to use to help your child improve on their math facts! Flashcards get boring fast but using playing cards and changing up the games/activities you do with them can keep your kid enthused. When they are enjoying what they are doing, they are also more likely to remember.

A deck of playing cards are easy to find and usually very inexpensive. The only downside to purchased playing cards is that the face cards don’t actually have numbers on them. I have made a set of cards that you can print off and use instead. They are similar to a regular deck of cards, but they have actual numbers instead of faces on what would normally be a jack, queen, & king. There are no “aces”, instead they are “ones”. I also used ten-frames with circles instead of clubs, hearts, etc.

Whether you use the ten-frame cards or store purchased cards, the number values are 1-13. In regular playing cards, the ace is considered a value of 1, jacks a value of 11, queens a value of 12, and kings are valued at 13. For the youngest kids, you may want to just remove anything valued at 11 or above. Some of the games/activities require two or more players, others can be solitaire.

Card Games Requiring Two or More Players

Math Facts Doubles Memory

Shuffle cards and place them spread out and all face down on the floor or a table. Players take turns flipping two cards over at a time. If the cards have the same value (i.e., both are 3’s), they add the numbers together. If they can correctly state the sum, they get to keep those cards and go again. Their turn is over when they do not get 2 matching (same value cards) or they get the sum incorrect. The game is over when all cards have been collected by the players. The player that was able to collect the most cards is the winner.

Addition (or Multiplication) War

Deal out all cards equally among the players. Each player takes two cards from their deck and place them on the table. Players figure the sum of their two cards together, and the player having the highest sum takes all the cards on the table. If there is a tie for the highest sum, the cards remain on the table and the tied players put 2 more cards down finding the sum. The winner of that sum then gets to collect all the cards on the table. This continues until only one player has all the cards in the deck, shuffling and using the new cards they win until they run out of cards. It can take a very long time for one player to win all the cards, so sometimes players will make an agreed upon stopping time (maybe setting a time to see who can win the most cards within set time). Multiplication War is played the same way except multiplying the cards together to get the product rather than adding to find the sum.

Race to 0

Choose a number. I like to use 20 or 13, or 10 if removing the face cards. After shuffling the cards, deal one card to each player. Place the remaining cards face down, making a draw pile. Each player places their card face up in front of them, while stating the difference (chosen number minus their card value). If for example the chosen number is 13 and they have a king, they win that round (13-13=0). They collect all the cards off the table for that round. In the case of a tie, then the winners draw a second card and the player that gets the closest to 0 gets to collect all the cards from the table. If none of the players gets a 0 on the deal, they can choose to draw another card on their turn (starting with player to the left of the dealer, going clockwise). If they chose to draw a card on their turn, they subtract that value from the total they already had. For example, if the chosen number was 13 and their first card was a 4, then they took a draw card that was a 7, now they have a total of 2 (13-4=9, 9-7=2). The object of the game is to be the first to get to 0, but not go below 0. The winner of the round is the player that gets to 0 first, or the closest without getting a negative number. If all players “bust”, the cards are placed into a “throw out” pile. When there are no cards left in the deck, players count their collected cards. The player that was able to collect the most cards wins the game!

Math Facts Solitaire Games

Pyramid

Shuffle cards, then lay them face up forming a pyramid shape. Starting with one card on the top, then 2 cards slightly overlapping the first card, then 3 cards over the 2 cards, etc. until all cards are used, forming a pyramid. See the picture below.

To play the game, find two cards showing (not partially covered by another card) that equal 13. Remove those cards. Kings can be removed alone because they equal 13. Remove all combinations of 13 using 1 or 2 cards exposed cards. As you are able to remove cards from the bottom layer, more cards will be exposed. To win the solitaire game, you are able to remove all cards from the pyramid.

Playing Cards Mad Minute

First choose addition or multiplication, and 1 number. Set a timer for 1 minute. Player holds the deck of cards in his or her hands, with cards facing down. After starting the timer, the player will turn the top card over and either add or multiply the chosen number to the card showing. As soon as the player can answer the math fact, they keep the card and draw the next card off the deck. The goal is to get as many cards as possible answered in one minute. This can also be played choosing subtraction or division, but some cards will need to be removed. For example, by removing the odd value cards you can divide by 2, or by removing cards below 3 you could subtract 3.

Concluding Notes

Hopefully you have some new ideas to make math fact practice fun. A note about memorizing math facts: Some kids can do just fine by only memorizing addition and multiplication facts. When they are presented with subtraction or division, they just reword the problem in their head such as 3 plus what equals 5 rather than 5 minus 3 equals what, or 6 x ? = 30 rather than 30 ÷ 6 = ?.