Showing posts with label math games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label math games. Show all posts

Thursday, June 26, 2014

Tangram Alphabet: Building Letters With Tangrams


Tangram is an ancient chinese game, that consist in create various figures with 7 geometric pieces. Today, despite being very old, this is a very popular game, serving for fun, but also, to develop the skills of spatial vision, logic, geometry, and creativity. This is a very helpfull game to study maths.


Below you can learn how to make all the letters of the alphabet with Tangrams. But before, it is essential having a tangram. If you do not have one and dont want to buy, dont worry. With just a sheet of paper and a scissor, you can build a tangram puzzle. Click HERE to learn how to build a tangram puzzle. 

After you have built your tangram puzzle, then you can try to make all the letters in the alphabet tangram. 


Tangram alphabet: building letters with tangrams 



A B C D E F G H 
I J K L M N 
O P Q R S 
T U V W 
Y X 
Z 


Below, you can find the resolution for each letter of the alphabet in Tangram.





















Tangram Alphabet: Building Letters With Tangrams - SOLUTIONS


Tangram Alphabet: Building Letters With Tangrams

Tuesday, June 17, 2014

Play online chess with a friend


One of the best math games ever is chess. With simple rules, but needing extensive reasoning ability, this is the game to have fun and evolve your maths thinking. In some countries of Eastern Europe, chess comes even part of the school curriculum, helping children develop reasoning. Here you cand play online chess with a friend.

Chess is seen by many as a big deal, but in reality it is a very interesting and fun game. Take a chance on this fantastic game and develop your reasoning. 

Before you start playing online chess with a friend, it is important to know the basic rules of chess. Learn about the basic rules of this game in our article "Basic Rules of Chess". 

If you already know the basic rules, start now to play online chess with a friend.


Tuesday, June 10, 2014

Basic rules of chess


Foto de Jeff Dahl

Chess is a game with two players, which is played on a square board with 8 houses on each side. The board has just 64 houses, 32 white and 32 black. Each player starts with 16 pieces (one king, one queen, two bishops, two knights, two towers, and eight pawns). The set of pieces of each player has a different color, so there is a set of black pieces and a set of white pieces. The ultimate goal of this game is to capture the opponent's king, making checkmate.

The initial position in chess is as follows:



First row, from right to left: Tower, Knight, Bishop, King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, Tower. The White King is in black square, and the black king is in the White House. The second line consists in eight pawns.

To start the game, the player with the white pieces makes the first move. Players move their pieces alternately. Each piece has a different movement, and every player has to respect these movements. When you capture a opposing piece (non-mandatory) , that piece is removed from the board. When you capture a piece, your piece is placed in the place of the captured piece. When you put the king in a checkmate or a stalemate is reached, the game ends. Then we explain the movement of each piece.


Basic rules of chess - movements


Before we cover the movements of each piece, it is crucial you know each one of the chess pieces.

King, Queen, Bishop, Rook, Knight and Pawn


  • King

The King may move a house vertically, horizontally or diagonally. The King can never be put in the check position. When you can not avoid it, you lose.


  • Queen

The queen can move horizontally, vertically or diagonally. The number of homes depends on the pieces that are on the board, since it can not pass through them.


  • Bishop

The bishop can only move diagonally. The number of house depends on the pieces that are on the board, since it can not pass through them.


  • Knight

The Knight is the only piece that can go over the other parts. The movement is in L, walked a house horizontally or vertically, and another diagonally. In the following image you can see the possible movements of the knight.




  • Tower

The tower moves horizontally and vertically. The number of houses depends on the pieces that are on the board, since it can not pass through them.


  • Pawn

The pawn moves usually a house upright, and only forward. However, there are situations where the movement of the pawns is different. For example, to capture a piece, you can just do it walking from a house diagonally across the board. Another different movement is when you are at the starting house. In its first movement, the pawn can move two squares forward.


Basic rules of chess - special moves

  • Castling

The castling is a movement which seeks to defend the King In this movement, the king moves two squares to the side, and the tower moves as well, passing over the King and getting to his side. You only can make this move if the houses between the King and the Tower are empty, and if the king is not in check. Additionally, the King and the Tower which is used for castling may not have yet been moved. This movement can be done to the right or left side, existing small castling and big castling.


  • Promote pawn

If a pawn reach the last house, its promoted, being replaced by a piece from your choosen, except for the King. 


  • Take the passage

This move only works when a pawn began with an advance of two houses, and simultaneously, the opposing pawn is in position to attack the house where the other passed pawn. In this case, the opponent's pawn can capture the other, moving to a halfway house. This movement can only occur on the next play.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Amazing Maths - Crazy test


Maths has amazing things. You can make a seemingly simple test, but it will prove to be very interesting. Let's play this crazy test, shall we? 



- Think of a number from 1 to 9. 

- Then multiply that number by 9. 

- Sum the digits of the previous result. 

- To this sum, add 7. 

- Finally, divide by 4. 

- If each letter of the alphabet corresponds to a number in the following sequence (A = 1, B = 2, C = 3, etc..), find the letter corresponding to the number you found. 

- Then choose the European country that starts with this letter. To help you out, check the following list:

Albania                                                           Germany
Andorra                                                          Austria
Belgium                                                           Bosnia and Herzegovina
Bulgaria                                                          Croatia
Slovakia                                                         Denmark
Spain                                                             Slovenia
Estonia                                                          Russian Federation
France                                                           Finland
Greece                                                          Netherlands
Hungary                                                         Italy
Latvia                                                             Liechtenstein
Lithuanian                                                       Luxembourg
Macedonia                                                      Moldova
Monaco                                                          Montenegro
Norway                                                           Poland
Romania                                                           Portugal
San Marino                                                       Serbia
Sweden                                                            Switzerland
Ukraine                                                            Turkey
Vatican                                                             Cyprus
Ireland                                                              Iceland
UK                                                                  Malta
Scotland                                                           Northern Ireland
Wales


- After selecting a name beginning with the letter obtained, you should check what is the fourth letter of the name. Finally, you must choose an animal starts with that letter from the following list of animals :

lion
eagle
dog
monkey
chimpanzee
cat
elephant
giraffe


Now you wrote down the name of the country and the animal that resulted by the number you chose, check below the result of this crazy test.





















Who knew that in Denmark there are monkeys ! :-)


Friday, May 23, 2014

Fun math - mental calculation game


Mental calculation is essential to know and study maths. Mental calculation is very important in every day and in the classroom. One way to practice is to study the multiplication tables. The multiplication table is essential to be able to calculate mentally. Below we present a game of mental calculation, where you have one minute to say what the result of several calculations using mental arithmetic. With this game, you can study maths while having fun!



(to increase the size of the game, go to zoom of the page and put it in 200%)