Fraction War

Objective: to practice comparing fractions using a deck of cards Materials: normal deck of playing cards (exclude jokers) Number of Players: 2 Play: 1. Shuffle the deck of cards and deal them out face down to each player. Keep the cards face down in a nice neat stack. 2. For a round, flip over 2 cards. Place the card that has the smallest face value as the numerator and the card that has the largest face value as the denominator. a. Player 1 flips over a Jack and a 7. The 7 becomes the numerator and the Jack (valued as an 11) becomes the denominator. So Player 1s fraction is 7/11. b. Player 2 flips over a 5 and a 3. The 3 becomes the numerator and the 5 becomes the denominator. So play Player 2s fraction is 3/5. 3. Players compare fractions and the player with the largest fraction (the fraction closest to 1 whole) wins all 4 cards. a. Since the two denominators are 11 and 5, both players would want to change their denominators to 55 since 55 is the lowest number that both 11 and 5 are factors of. b. Player 1 would create an equivalent fraction with a denominator of 55. Since to get to 55 from 11, you would multiply by 5, player 1 would multiply the numerator of 7 by 5. The equivalent fraction of 7/11 with a denominator of 55 would be 35/55. c. Player 2 would create an equivalent fraction with a denominator of 55. Since to get to 55 from 5, you would multiply by 11, player 2 would multiply the numerator of 3 by 11. The equivalent fraction of 3/5 with a denominator of 55 would be 33/55. d. Player 1 has a fraction of 35/55. Player 2 has a fraction of 33/55. Since Player 1 has a fraction that is closer to 1 whole, player 1 wins the round and takes all 4 cards. 4. If the two fractions are equivalent, flip over 2 more cards and the winner takes all 8 cards. 5. The game ends when one player has all the cards in the deck.