5 th Grade Math Activities

Learning Equivalents with Playing Cards

Card games are lots of fun and involve a good bit of math too. Here’s a classic card game
you can adapt to teach your fifth grader equivalents.

You will need:

• White paper
• Markers
• 4 or more players

Instructions:
• Cut out 52 playing cards out of sheets of white paper. Make 4 sets of 13 cards.
• For each set, write a decimal number on one card. For the other cards in the set, write
fractions or equivalent percents. For instance, one set will be: .10, 10%, 10/100 and .10.
• Once the sets are ready, gather all the players and start the game. The object of the
game is to collect 4 different cards bearing equivalents belonging to the same
number. For instance, .23, 23/100, 23% and .23.
• Hand out four cards (bearing dissimilar numbers) to each of the players.
• Place deck in the center of the table and invite the players to take turns picking one
card from the top. They can keep the card they picked or pass it on face down if they
don’t want it.
• If they decide to keep the card, they must discard one of theirs.
• The game continues until one player gets 4equivalents.

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