Activity:
Slap It!: An Odds and Evens Card Game
Help your child understand the concept of odd and even while having a rip-roaring good time. This activity is based on the popular card game, Slapjack. It uses cards to reinforce concepts of odd and even, which in turn will help your child succeed in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
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What You Need:
- A deck of cards
- 2-8 players
What You Do:
- The dealer shuffles the cards and then deals them out, face down, to each player in rotation, until all the cards have been passed out. (It doesn't matter if one player gets an extra card or two!) Players arrange their cards, without looking at them, into a neat pile in front of them.
- The object of the game is to win as many cards as possible, by being the first to slap each odd number as it lands in the center.
- Beginning with the dealer, each player lifts the top card off of his pile and places it face up in the center, making sure to turn up the card so it's facing away from him, so he doesn't see it any sooner than anyone else.
- When the card put down is odd, the first player to slap his hand down on it takes it, as well as all the cards beneath it. The player winning these cards turns them face down, places them under his pile of cards, and shuffles his deck to form a new, larger pile. He then places the pile in front of him as before.
- If more than one player slaps a card, the one whose hand is directly on top of it wins the pile. If a player slaps at any card in the center that is not odd, he must give one card, face down, to the player of that card. When a player runs out of cards, he stays in the game until the next odd card is turned. He can slap at that card in an effort to get a new pile. If he fails to win that next pile, he is out of the game.
Play continues until one player has won all the cards. That player is the winner!
