Instant Elementary Grouping Game for School or Home Using Cards

Following up on yesterday's simple elementary grouping game, here's a way to use a deck of cards to do more practice on grouping in the classroom, at home, or anywhere you have some table space to lay out cards.  This is appropriate for K-3, (older children having trouble with multiplication and division).

Basically, using different amounts of cards, you'll ask the students "How many groups of ... can you make?" using the numbers given.  You can remix this activity in a variety of games, working your way up from a smaller group or starting with

• Start with all 52 cards, face down.  Groups of 26, 13, 8, 7, 4, 2, 52, 1.
• Remove 4 cards (leaving 48 cards).  Groups of 12, 24, 4, 8, 6, 2, 48, 1.
• Remove 8 cards (leaving 40).  Groups of 10, 20, 40, 1, 5, 8, 2.
• Remove 5 cards (leaving 35).  Groups of 5, 7, 35, 1.
• Remove 10 cards (leaving 25).  Groups of 1, 5.
• Remove 1 card (leaving 24).  Groups of 2, 4, 6, 8, 12, 24.
• Remove 6 cards (leaving 18).  Groups of 3, 6, 9.
• Remove 8 cards (leaving 10).  Groups of 2, 5, 10, 1.

Throughout this activity there's opportunities to ask about multiplication and division facts as well as fractions.  You'll notice the number of groups and order changes in each round; that's on purpose.  I didn't include any group numbers that would leave remainders, which you can of course add depending on the child's aptitude and grade level.

You could replace the deck of cards with basically any other object, but cards are useful for many different types of games and I think are easier to organize and keep track of than block, beads, and other typical counting objects used in schools and at home.