One of our Palo Alto Math tutors here in the Palo Alto math tutoring center wanted to start a puzzle of the month since all of our Palo Alto Math tutors appreciate a good book every once in a while. For the month of August, our book is Sid Saskson's A Gamut of Games. A Gamut of Games is a collection of all sorts board games. Not all of them are entirely mathematical but they'll force our Palo Alto Math tutoring students to employ mathematical skills (like recognizing patterns, using logic, and game theory). Our Palo Alto Math tutoring students may not even notice that they're using math! This doesn't stop them from being a fun and engaging experience that develops the same skills useful inside the classroom and outside as well. And these games aren't just for our Palo Alto Math tutoring students. In fact, though they are simple, they should be played with the whole family! Our Palo Alto Math Tutors encourage our Palo Alto Math Tutoring Families to give some of the games in the book a try. You won't regret it!

Palo Alto Math Tutoring Instructor Favorite

This is a summary one of our favorites: Patterns II

One player is the designer and the other players are guessers. The designer creates a pattern on a 6x6 grid. The other players then ask for squares and are told the symbol in that square by the designer. Once they find the pattern, they fill in the rest and hand it to the designer to be scored. They get +1 point for each correct guess, -1 point for each incorrect guess, and 0 points for each square given by the designer. The designer score twice the difference between the highest and lowest score for that round.

Example pattern:

Source (Wikipedia)  

For More Math and Math Tutoring

For more math practice and math tutoring, make sure to schedule a visit to our center this school year. And for more fun ways to learn math, visit Mathnasium of Palo Alto-Menlo Park. If you're in Palo Alto, and looking for math tutoring services, please don't hesitate to contact us!

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