Operation Relay Classroom Math Game & Activity

This idea was sent to us by a former teacher in our local area and it's a great way for students to practice addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

Objective: This is a game for reinforcement of any of the four math operations.

Materials: Paper and pencil

Organization: Teacher needs to put class in rows of four. All players need pencils.

Instructions: The first student in each row takes out a sheet of paper. The teacher begins the game by saying a problem like 352-187=? Only the first person in each row writes the problem down. Then as soon as that person finishes he/she passes the paper to the 2nd person in the row who solves the problem. Upon completing that, the student passes it to the 3rd player who checks the problem and then he/she passes it to the 4th player who checks it all over, makes corrections if necessary, and has everyone in the row stand up when finished. Each student does this for two rounds.

Then all the players move back one except for the last player in the row who moves up to where the 1st player is. Now each player will have a new position and will do this for two more rounds. Then the students switch again. They will do this until all players have a chance to do all parts of the problem.

Scoring: The first row to stand up and has answered the problem correctly gets 3 points. The second row gets 2 points and the third row gets 1 point. The students really enjoy playing this game. They root each other on because they all want to win!

Time: Approximately 30 minutes