Digital games are often superficially mathematical, but rarely provide the deep engagement or wide-ranging conversation that a tabletop game can. If you've subscribed to this newsletter for a while, you know that I rarely recommend digital games. This makes the game exciting enough that kids will play it over and over again.Ĭlick here to buy Zeus on the Loose on Amazon (affiliate link) Dragonbox Numbers and Big Numbers But the game designers didn't stop there: They also created a bunch of special Greek God cards that allow kids to skip a player, reverse the direction of play, change the sum, and all sorts of other fun bonus actions.
If you play a card that brings the sum to a multiple of ten (like 20, 30, 40, etc), then you get to steal the Zeus statue and hold it until someone steals it from you! Whoever is holding Zeus when the game ends is the winner.įinding numbers that add to ten is a hugely important skill in first grade, and this game gets kids thinking about that precise topic with every turn of the cards. So if four players discard a 1, a 3, a 7, and a 5, then the total rises from 1 to 4 to 11 to 16. You take turns discarding cards, adding them to the existing sum as you go. Each player gets a bunch of cards containing one-digit numbers.
