Children's Museum of Houston

Did you know?

What you need

• Special playing cards (copied and cut out)
• Objects to manipulate (beans, square pieces of paper, etc.)
• Cut outs of food items
• Paper and pencil

What to do

1. Shuffle and set out each deck of playing cards upside down.
2. Determine who will go first.
3. Player one picks a people card and a food card.
4. Figure out how much of the food on the food card each person on the person card will get. Remember that everyone gets an equal share of food.
5. Use objects, drawings or words to prove to the other players that your answer will work.
6. When a player correctly divides the food among the people, they earn two points.
7. Other players can choose to name alternate ways of sharing to earn one extra point.
8. Take turns repeating steps 1-6.
9. The first player to earn 10 points wins!

What to ask

• Does that explanation make sense to you?
• Can you show me your reasoning in another way?
• How many of that size piece would it take to make a whole one?
• What’s next?
• Play the game in reverse.If everyone is getting 1/2 of a brownie, then how many people could be sharing? How many brownies?
• Use the 7 people, 9 people and 10 people cards.
• Challenge each other to equally divide unusual items.