New games from Learning Games Lab now on GameUp
Posted by SM Bruner on
We’re thrilled to welcome our newest partner to GameUp, New Mexico State University’s Learning Games Lab. We have two fantastic free games from NMSU’s Math Snacks to help you teach and reinforce math skills:
Monster School Bus: Designed for students in grades 1-5, this game allows players to explore various ways to combine numbers to create a target amount. As the new monster bus driver, players plan routes to pick up as many little monsters as they can in as few trips as possible on the way to monster school. The game is a great way for students to find different ways combine numbers that add up to 10, or play the advanced levels and combine decimals that add up to 1. Our combining numbers lesson plan for Monster School Bus provides more background information about the game, as well as Common Core State Standards alignments and ideas for incorporating the game into classroom instruction.
Pearl Diver: In Pearl Diver, students in grades 3-8 take the form of a scuba diver who must dive at the proper place on various number lines to retrieve precious pearls. The game starts out with simple numbers but quickly introduces more complex concepts, including negative numbers, fractions, and decimals. In between rounds, students will take a break from diving and practice estimating skills as they prepare to slice some electric eel sushi. Learn more about how the game can reinforce your students’ math skills in our fractions on a number line lesson plan for Pearl Diver.
For both games, you’ll find Teacher Resources from Learning Games Lab. The resources include high quality lesson plans, Common Core State Standard alignments, guidelines for teaching with games, and more.
We hope you’ll join us to learn more about NMSU’s fabulous math games and animations during next week’s webinar, Math Snacks on GameUp: Math Tools to fill the Gaps. During the webinar, which will be held on Wednesday, April 24th at 4:30 PM ET, Drs. Karen Trujillo and Barbara Chamberlin of New Mexico State University will introduce Math Snacks, a collection of games and animations designed to address math learning gaps in grades 5-7. You’ll walk away from this webinar with easy-to-implement strategies and access to support materials sure to take the math-related game play in your classroom up a notch. Also, you can visit our BrainPOP and the Common Core support page for more information.
