Who Has? Coin Cards

The coin card deck provides practice for students to count coins and determine the amount pictured.  Give each student a card and hand out any extras to better students, as the whole deck must be used.  Allow students time to figure out the value of the coins on their cards.

Pick a student to start the game.  The student reads the coins on his/her card.  Because other students cannot see the coins on the card, it is important for the student to read the coins.  For example, the student with the card pictured above would read:  I have one quarter and two pennies.  Who has 13 cents?

The student with the card that has a value of 13 cents would then answer.  I have one dime and three pennies.  Who has 32 cents.   The game continues until the original student answers the question Who has 27 cents?

Classroom Management Suggestions:

Teachers can easily differentiate the game to accommodate varied ability levels by carefully distributing the cards, giving simpler coin combinations to struggling students so that they may successfully participate.

The game is designed to be an ongoing loop, so teachers may select any student to begin and the play will eventually come back to that student.  All cards must be used to complete the loop.

In the beginning, teachers may find it helpful to follow the Who Has? Coin Deck Loop to easily monitor student responses.  Teachers might ask the starting student to come to the front of the class to start.  This way, it's easy to know when the play comes back to the starter.

Once students are proficient at this deck, start timing the class performance.  Record the time on the board and challenge students to better their time the next day.The beauty of the Who Has? card decks is that students mentally check everyone's response, performing 20 calculations in the course of the game.  Students enjoy the game more than completing a similar worksheet and they are strongly motivated to participate and give the correct answer in order to better the class time.

Download the Who Has? Coin Deck which may be printed onto 2x4 inch labels to affix to index cards to create an easy deck.  Teachers may also print the cards on card stock and cut them apart to create a smaller deck.

If students are currently using coin antennas to determine the value of coin combinations, Mathwire has a deck for them.  Download the Who Has? Coin Deck with Antennas to use with young learners.  The game is played in the same way.  The antennas are added as an appropriate modification for struggling learners.  This deck is exactly the same sequence as the regular deck, so teachers could choose to insert the coin antenna cards only for struggling students.
 
Mathwire Who Has? Collection:  Check out all of the card decks in the Mathwire Who Has? collection which includes addition, subtraction, multiplication facts, geometry, doubles, etc.  The web page also details classroom management suggestions.
 
Small Group Play:  Place extra decks in the math center.  Allow 2-4 students to play the game in pairs or small groups.  Students deal out the cards and place them face up in front of them on the table.  The person to the left of the dealer picks any card to begin.  He/she reads that card and then turns it over.  The student with the correct answer reads his/her card and then turns it over.  Play continues until all cards are turned over.  The person who turns over all cards first is the dealer for the next round.

Summer Basic Facts Practice

Students may easily lose fact mastery over the summer without some kind of regular practice.  Parents may help students retain mastery by utilizing small moments of time on a daily basis.  Here are some suggestions:

• Mad Minute:  insert a facts worksheet into a page protector.  The student uses a dry-erase marker to complete as many facts as possible in one minute.  Many students respond positively to this experience as it's only a minute.  They can practice graphing skills by graphing the number of correct facts for each day.
• Who Has? Card Decks:  read about and download Who Has? cards from Mathwire's collection, print out the labels and apply to index cards to easily create a deck.  Shuffle the deck and deal out the cards.  Each player turns over his/her cards.  The person who has the I have 0. card begins.  After reading a card, the player turns over that card, and play continues.  The first player to read all of his/her cards wins.  NOTE:  This is a totally random winning, but students seem to be challenged by the prospect of "winning."

• Contig:  Play this game to help older students develop fact fluency with addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts.  The beauty of the Contig game is that students will practice facts for several options, searching for the move that yields the most points.  Download the Contig game mat and directions from Mathwire.

Using Who Has? Decks to Develop Fact Fluency

Once students have developed conceptual understanding of the basic operations they need to develop fluency with the facts. One quick way to include daily practice and motivate students to master these basic facts is through the use of the Who Has? card decks. These decks can be created for virtually any topic and frequent use as both a whole class practice or as a center activity for partners or small groups will provide facts practice in a highly-motivating format.

Each deck has 24-30 cards that are distributed to students. Give out the extra to student volunteers or to better students who are able to watch two cards at a time. Then select a student to start the round. Alternatively, star one of the cards to be the beginning card. The first student reads his/her card and each student examines his/her card to see if he/she has the answer to that problem. The student who has the answer on his/her card, reads the answer, then reads the next question from the card. Play continues until the question is answered once again by the student who started the round.

I have found this to be the best way to practice basic facts. Students are so excited to play the game, that they forget they are actually learning. The underlying beauty of this game is that each student practices the 30 facts as the game progresses because he/she is checking both his/her card and the accuracy of other students. This activity provides basic fact practice without having to copy worksheets and students are more highly motivated by the Who Has? game.

Teachers may use these decks in several ways: class play, small group play, partner play or send them home for fact practice with parents. Be sure to visit Mathwire's Who Has? Activities page to read classroom management suggestions for implementing this fun activity and to download Who Has? decks.

The Mathwire Who Has? collection is formatted to print on 2 inch by 4 inch labels which may then be affixed to index cards to create the deck. Using different colored index cards for each deck also helps with the classroom management system. Teachers may consider creating multiple copies of each deck to keep in the math center, send home with students, and use as class decks. Each PDF download also includes a page with the complete deck listed for teacher convenience.

Who Has? Decks are an invaluable tool in any classroom. Visit Mathwire Who Has? Activities to download any of these decks for use in your classroom:

• Multiplication Facts
• Multiplication Facts (Spanish version)
• Multiplication Facts, Decks B-D
• Addition Facts
• Doubles Facts
• More or Less Facts
• Fractions
• Base Ten
• Place Value
• Coins
• Algebra Variable Expressions
• Geometry