Math game challenge for elementary schools

Here is a little idea that helps teachers to connect math, gymnastics and any other subject into a math game suitable for elementary school students. 

Lets call it a Math challenge. So, it is basically about simple addition and subtraction.

Preparing

In Loquiz there are questions. These can be about anything, take your pick. It can be about math, but doesn’t necessarily have to. That is what is so cool about it; the “any other subject” part of the game.

Secondly, you can make questions open in different locations. To get there, students need to move. Questions do not just open, they open when you are at the right place.

Third, and the most important aspect of this game, is that every question in Loquiz can have a difficulty score. By default it is 1, but you can change it per question.  It is also displayed on every pin, this is the math part.

Imagine that you now have a handful of locations around you. In each location, there is a really cool question and each question has its own difficulty score.

Running

Tell the teams that in this game they will have several goals.  You will reveal the goals one-by-one. First goal is to get to 20 points.  Whoever gets to 20 first gets a prize.  When one team is at 20 you will invite everybody back. Now the teams are in slightly different positions. One has 20, maybe some have 13, maybe somebody has 23 and went over.  You now reveal the next goal. They should get to 40 points for example.

You see the results online, so you can come up with whatever number is appropriate at that phase. The first team to get to 40 gets the prize and everybody comes back.  Now the third goal is something different. They should get to 10 points again.

How can they come down?

There are two ways to set up the game.

1. Regularly teams get shown the amount of points for every correct answer. Incorrect answers give zero points. So, add some negative value questions, that can help teams to count down if answered correctly.
2. The second option is to tick the box that says “Incorrect answers give negative points”.  You will find this on your game setting pages. So if they answer wrong, they would get the shown amount of negative points.  This makes it really hard to climb up, but easy to fall back down. To make it harder to fall down you might want to use YES/NO or THIS/THAT type of questions there.

But the game is not over yet. The first one to get to 10 points (it should be easiest to the team that is lagging behind ) gets to give the final goal. Til’ the end of game time, whoever has the highest score wins.

What does the game do?

It makes teams plan their route and calculate (add and subtract) constantly to plan their score. Difficulty scores can be 67 or 35 to make it really tough and goals can be like 1234 instead of 10.  Get the point? You make it suit your group.

Disclaimer

This idea popped into my head when working on another game concept. I have not actually tested it. Nobody has tested it. You might be the first. So if you do, let us and others know how it worked and what tips you have to make it work better.