This “Math Bowling” activity is one that students tend to love! It is great for practicing math facts as well as for stretching students’ thinking.
The activity is done as follows (students alone or in pairs):
Roll three dice (your choice whether to use regular six-sided dice or include one or more different dice, such as a ten-sided die). Write the numbers in the boxes marked “strike”. Using all three numbers each time exactly once, students work to write equations to equal each of the numbers 1 to 10 of the “pins” marked on the sheet and thus “knock them down”. Students may use whatever operations they understand: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division are standard, but students may also use exponents, roots, and factorials if those are in their realm of mathematical knowledge.
For instance, if the numbers rolled are 2, 3, and 6, students might “knock down”
1 = 6 – 2 – 3 OR 1= 6/(2 x 3)
3 = [( 3!)/6] + 2
4 = (2 x 6) ÷ 3
5 = 6 + 2 – 3
6 = (6 ÷ 2) + 3
7 = 3 + 6 – 2
9 = (6 ÷ 2) x 3
If the students did equations for those 7 numbers/pins, that would constitute the first throw of the ball. Since all the pins are not knocked down, the player may roll the dice a second time, record the numbers in the boxes marked “spare” and try to knock down the three remaining pins using that second set of numbers to score a spare. If that is not accomplished, the student scores the number of pins knocked down in the two “throws”.
If you wish, as players take multiple turns, you can calculate scores in the manner that 10-pin bowling is actually scored. As someone who was on a youth bowling league in my younger days, I know the scoring system well. There is some good math in the score keeping, too! If you are not familiar with that scoring system, here is a website which will walk you through the scoring process.
http://www.bowling2u.com/trivia/game/scoring.asp
Download the “Math Bowling” sheet here.
Download the score sheet here.
I hope you will give math bowling a try with your class.
Mathematically yours,
Carollee
