Do you remember playing “Old Maid” when you were a kid? I loved hanging out at my friend Doreen’s house during the summer. We swam all day, picked kumquats from her tree, and played cards by the pool. Many hands of “Old Maid” and “Rummy” filled our lazy days.
Today, while we aren’t hanging out by the pool, we are on a short vacation and the kids wanted to play Fraction Old Main, game F4 in the Math Card Games book, as we rested in the hotel. Honest! They asked to play the game!
To play, you will need the fraction cards deck. Set aside all the percentage cards, all the 1s and one 1/3, two 1/4s, three 1/5s, two 1/6s, one 1/8, two 1/10s and one 3/10s. You will be left with 29 pairs that add up to one; a total of 58 cards.
Shuffle the deck, remove a random card and set it aside. No one should see what this card is until the end. Now deal all the remaining cards to the players. It is okay if some players get more than others. Just keep it as even as possible.
This is what Peter’s hand looked like once all the cards were dealt.
He then matched up cards that equaled one.
Once everyone else found their pairs and set them aside, the game began. You can see our cards in these photos here, but in the game we kept them secret from each other.
Peter laid out his cards face down for me to take one. I chose a card and looked at it. It did not make a pair with anything I had in my hand, so I put it in the rest of my cards.
Then I offered my cards face down to Chiara. She picked a 1/8 which matched her 7/8 card. Yippee! She laid the pair down. The game continued until all cards, except one, were paired up.
Here are all of Peter’s pairs at the end of the game.
And here’s Chiara pairs at the end. See that unmatched 5/8 at the end?
Chiara had the “dead end” card. Her left over 5/8 card matched with the 3/8 card that was set aside in the beginning of the game!
