Fair Trades UP Penny Game in Base 2, a Readiness Activity for Understanding Addition

Number of players: Two

Materials:

_ Two Fair Lands™ or activity

boards—one for each player

_ Optional: picture of the as a

reminder to keep the activity boards safe

_ Penny

Instructions:

•Put all of the Unit Cubes on the FREE Unit Cubes card. Put the remaining blocks on the Trading Place card.

•Players take turns tossing a penny. If heads, he or she puts one Unit Cube from the FREE Unit Cubes card on their activity board. If tails, two Unit Cubes.

•After each toss, both players check to see if the activity board with the additional Unit Cubes is “safe” (doesn’t have two or more the same). If safe, the other player tosses the penny. If not safe, it must be made safe before play can continue. To make it safe, the player that added Unit Cubes to their activity board must make all possible trades of “two or more the same” for the next bigger block. In doing so, he or she must make the simplest trades possible. For example, if there are two Unit Cubes and one Long on his or her activity board after the toss, he or she must first trade the two Unit Cubes for a Long and then trade the resulting two Longs for a Flat. He or she cannot trade the Unit Cubes and Longs all at once for a Flat. (That would amount to skipping over a column when adding, and that is not how addition is performed. It is done column by column beginning with the units column.)

•If playing on 4-column activity boards, the winner is the first player to get a Super Cube. If playing on 7-column activity boards, a Mega Cube.