The first card game a five-year-old can win
Make Ten
Cards laid out face up; take any two that add to ten. That is the whole game, and number bonds to ten are the single most useful thing a young child can know by heart.
- Players
- 1 or 2
- Time
- 5 to 10 minutes
- Ages
- 5 and up
What you need
- A standard deck of cards with the picture cards removed
How to play
- Lay out twelve cards. Remove the picture cards. Lay twelve cards face up in a grid where everyone can see them. Aces count as one.
- Find a pair that makes ten. Take any two cards that add up to exactly ten — 4 and 6, 7 and 3, 9 and 1.
- Take the tens too. A ten can be taken on its own, because it already is ten.
- Fill the gaps. Deal new cards into the empty spaces and keep going.
- Finish the deck. The game ends when the deck runs out. If two are playing, whoever collected more cards wins.
The maths in it
Bonds to ten are the foundation everything else stands on: 8 + 5 is easy once you know 8 + 2 fills the ten and 3 is left over. Doing it as a hunt across a grid means a child sees the same pairs again and again until they stop calculating them.
Making it fit the child
Easier: Use only cards 1 to 5 and make five instead. Or play cooperatively, clearing the grid together with no winner at all.
Harder: Make twenty with three cards. Or race a timer and try to beat your own best clearance.