Temperature Game

Learn about temperature while practicing negative and positive integers. Use a thermometer as a number line and draw from a deck of playing cards to determine where you'll move. Draw a red card, and you'll move down. Draw a black card, and you'll move up. First one to reach the boiling point wins! Your child will love playing Staying Above Zero, and you'll see his confidence in using negative and positive integers improve as well.

What You Need:

• Deck of cards
• Thermometer game board (Draw this using the picture shown as an example.)
• Place marker (e.g. coin, bean) for every player

What You Do:

1. Create the game board by drawing a temperature line, such as in the picture above. It should start at zero and go to 100 degrees Celsius. A good length is two to three sheets of paper (or 30 inches).
2. Shuffle the deck of cards and place it face down in a draw pile. Have each player select a place marker and place it at normal body temperature (37 degrees Celsius).
3. Players take turns drawing cards. Red cards represent negative numbers (Move the indicated number of spaces down.), and black cards represent positive numbers (Move the indicated number of spaces up.).
4. If a player moves their marker below the freezing point of water (zero degrees Celsius), they are eliminated. If a player lands on normal body temperature again, they may draw another card (but are not required to). If a player lands on the same space as another player, they may move forward another 10 spaces.
5. The first player to reach the boiling point of water (100 degrees Celsius) wins!

Variation:

• Start from zero. Make all cards positive numbers.