So he wrote a note to himself in yellow gel pen (“yes!”) next to 14-9. In the above example, he realized that if he blocked me on the left (with 15-9), I could still win. My first grader had to be strategic as he tried to make sure I didn’t get four in a row first. The cool thing about these games is that there’s more than subtraction at work. He already knew this one: add one to the second digit of the first number to get your answer.īut this was a new one for him: when you subtract nine, add the two digits of the first number and you have your answer! When I pulled out the Magic 9 facts, I asked him if he knew the special tricks you can do when you subtract nine.
My Six knows his subtraction facts pretty well, but this strategy helped him out when we were doing this page of harder facts. The sidebar of each game introduces a strategy for solving a particular group of facts.įor example… have you heard of the zero finger strategy? When you download the games, you’ll notice that they’re more than four-in-a-row games.
