Middle School Students + Intgers + Competition = Learning Fun

After teaching math to middle school students, each year, I am still surprised at what my students breeze through and what they find difficult.  It can vary from year to year, but a pretty constant skill that they struggle with is integers, particularly with integer addition and subtraction. 

For integer addition and subtraction, I always start my students out using counters.  Yes, it takes much more paper (I owe you one trees!), but it seems to give students a concrete way to understand the addition and subtraction of integers.  

This year for integer addition, I created a game for students to play in partners with dice.  If you teach middle school, then you know the best way to get students engaged is to provide a little friendly competition.  I gave each pair of students a green dice, a red dice, and a score sheet.  The red dice represented a negative number and the green dice represented a positive number.  Each player took a turn and had to add the positive and negative number that they rolled. This represented their score for the roll, which could be either positive or negative.  The first person to reach a total score of 50 won the game. 

 My students LOVED this activity.  I also noticed that they seemed to grasp the concept of adding integers and moved more quickly away from using counters.  Learning and fun equals a successful day in middle school!

Click on the link to download the game from my TPT store!