Rounding Numbers Football BLITZ!

My class has been hard at work on building number sense, and that means….rounding numbers!  This is such a tricky skill for many students, so I started thinking about how to teach and practice this in a new way. 

I had some crazy inspiration hit me during a football game at our town’s NEW stadium.  Sitting there watching the opening game I started to think up a way to combine math and football.  The result:  Rounding Numbers Football BLITZ!  I’m so excited about this math game, and hoping that my 3^rd grade football fans will make new connections to how rounding numbers work!

The game board for this activity is a football field (modified to match the math involved! J).  The board just needs to be printed and attached side-by-side to a manilla file folder.  There are two versions included—one for rounding tens and the other for rounding to the nearest hundreds.  Two sets of number cards are also included, with color used to highlight the place being rounded too.  Players move towards their end zone when their numbers round up, but earn “round downs” when their card number rounds down.  There are even “interception” and “fumble” cards mixed in, and a scoreboard for players to record their points!   I've also added a math writing "football play book" page where students choose a prompt to respond to after playing the game.

I have a few toy football helmets and football trinkets from the dollar store that I plan on using for game pieces, but chips or pennies or similar game pieces will work just as well!

I've posted this in my Teachers Pay Teachers store, and  hope that you’ll give this a look at give this a look.  Let me know what you think!