Knock-Out

Have I told you about my awesome colleague Tami? She and I teach the math courses at UAB for future elementary educators. And, unlike me, she actually has years of firsthand experience teaching young children all about math.

In fact, Tami is the inspiration behind this entire newsletter. Way back in 2016 I was talking to her about finding opportunities for parents and kids to talk about math at home and she said “Yeah, but parents don’t really know how to ask good math questions. That’s why I always used to send math games home for homework. Kids love games, and parents can pick up on the rules quickly. Then the math just sort of happens.”

And an idea was born…

Last winter, Tami lent me a game that she used to use in her 1st grade classroom and then March happened and, well, I still have it. I think it’s one of the simplest, most fun early math games I’ve played - and if you don’t have the board, you can play for free with a few dice and some paper!

The game is called Knock-Out.

How to Play

Knock-Out was developed by Muggins Math, and you can order the game from them directly. If you do so, you can get a second game carved in the other side of the wooden board! Or, as I mentioned, you can make your own.

The game has a circle of numbers from 1 to 18 with holes above and below each number. The first player rolls a set of three dice and adds the digits up. Then, they split the sum into a set of different addends. So if you rolled a total of 15, you might split the number into 1, 6, and 8 or perhaps 2, 3, and 10 or even 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5

You’ll notice that this mechanic is very similar to one of my favorite games ever, Shut the Box! (I even made a video about it last year). 

Once you’ve split up your sum, claim every addend on the board. So player 1 might split 15 into 2, 3, and 10 and claim each of those with a small marble or mancala stone.

The next player rolls, adds, and splits up a number as well. They can claim new addends, or they can “knock out” their opponent’s marbles and claim those addends for themselves.

This is important because as soon as one person claims both holes above and below a number, they earn a point. Not only that, nobody can bump their pieces or use that number for the rest of the game. So if Player 1 can claim the number 3 twice, they’ve blocked their opponent, and themselves, from using 3s for all future rounds.

The game ends when one player scores five points.

Where’s the Math?

One reason I like this game is that kids spend time decomposing numbers into three or more addends. Most of the time, kids practice decomposing a number into to addends, but in Knock-Out the best moves are ones in which you can claim three or four addends in a single move. This improves your child’s flexibility with quickly adding and subtracting numbers in inventive ways.

Not only that, but over time your child might realize that some addends are more valuable than others. The 1 space, for example, is extremely valuable real estate. The 18, on the other hand, is EXTREMELY difficult to claim twice. As your kids play, they might start to gain an intuition about the likelihood of rolling certain numbers.

In fact, now is a good time to test your own intuition: What is the most likely sum to roll with a set of three normal dice?

Questions to Ask

The most important question to ask in this game is “How else could you break your number up?”

At first, kids will tend to go with their first instinct. They might roll 11 and just claim the 11 space with no further thought. So push them to try to find one more possibility. Even if they go with their first idea, they’ll at least have gotten the chance to think through a few more options.

Another good move is to narrate your choices and ask for advice. This is especially helpful the first couple of times you play. Eventually, you’ll want to play competitively, but at first you and your child can play semi-cooperatively, brainstorming other moves that might work well.

The last question you can ask is “Want to play the challenge version?” There is a variation on the game where you choose one die to be the tens place and then add the other two together to make a larger sum. So if you roll a 3, a 4, and a 6, you could do 30 + 4 + 6 to get 42, or 40 + 3 +6 to get 49, or even 60 + 3 + 4 to get 67. Then you split those numbers up the way you normally would. This variation is much more mentally challenging, but it also brings the higher numbers into the game more fully. I recommend it!

So whether you play the pen-and-paper version, or buy the game from Muggins Math, I hope you enjoy. You have my friend Tami to thank for the game, and for inspiring this whole newsletter for that matter!