Fair Trades DOWN Penny Game in Base 2, a Readiness Activity for Understanding Subtraction

Number of players: Two

Materials:

_ Two Fair Lands™ or

activity boards, one for each player

_ Penny

Materials:

•Each player puts one Unit Cube, one Long, one Flat, and one Super Cube (and so on if playing with 7-column activity boards) on his or her activity board. The remaining blocks are put on the Trading Place card.

•Players take turns tossing a penny. Heads = the player takes one Unit Cube off his or her activity board; tails = the player takes two Unit Cubes off his or her activity board. (The player always takes off Unit Cubes.) If there are not enough Unit Cubes to take off, but there are other blocks on the player’s activity board, he or she takes the smallest block to the Trading Place and trades “down” to get more Unit Cubes but never more than two Units. For example, if the smallest block left on the player’s activity board is a Flat, he or she trades it for one Long and two Unit Cubes, not four Unit Cubes. (The player’s activity board wouldn not be safe with that many Unit Cubes even after taking one or two off.)

•The winner is the first player to clear their activity board.