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Speaker

Ok, mathematicians to play this game, you need some coloured pencils and markers, some paper and three sets of number cards showing one to six.

[Screen shows 3 sets of number cards one through to 6, a Dotty six game board with 2 vertical lines and 2 horizontal lines, like a noughts and crosses board, and 2 markers one black and one orange.]

It's OK if you don't have those things yet. You can press pause and go get them now and come back and play or watch how to play the game and prepare your materials when you're ready to play too.

Here we go!

Hello young mathematicians! We thought we'd share a game with you today called 'Dotty 6' that we learned about from 'Nrich mathematics'.

[Screen shows 3 markers, one orange, one black and one navy, 3 sets of number cards from one through to 6 and an A4 piece of paper.]

So, to play 'Dotty 6', you need a game board and your game board that looks like a nought and crosses’ board.

[Presenter draws 2 vertical lines and 2 horizontal lines on paper which looks like a noughts and crosses board.]

It's a very similar game and we need some different coloured markers to represent the two teams that are playing.

So today there's the Orange Team who I'm going to represent with this guy here, you might know him, and the Black Team, who of course there's no one else that you could represent him with is there, apart from Batman, and we also need some cards to play with, so in this case we need cards with numbers on them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, so we each had a go at drawing or making some of our cards that we would play with.

[Presenter picks up the orange marker and places an Ironman figure next to it to represent the orange team on the left. Then they pick up the black marker and place a Batman figure next to it to represent the black team on the right.]

You can see there's different sets here, and we each made our own set from one to 6 and then we're going to shuffle them altogether, so that we have enough cards to play our game with.

[Presenter picks up 3 sets of handmade number cards displaying numbers from one through to 6 in number and word form. They then shuffle them and place them face down at the top of the paper.]

Alright, let's play. Who should start? You're right! Batman, 'cause he's the best superhero. We can debate that later, ok. And... they got a one.

[Presenter flips over the first card and it is a one.]

So, the first thing that the Batman Team has to do, is record down their one, and then think about where they would like to put it in their game. So, they might go up here.

[Presenter picks up the black marker and writes 1 in the top right corner of the page and marks one small dot in the top right corner box of the noughts and crosses board. Presenter puts the card on the bottom of the pile.]

OK, and now it's time for the Orange Team. And they got a 4 and they might put their dots... here. OK.

[Presenter flips over another card and it is 4. They then pick up the orange marker and write 4 in the top right corner underneath the one, and mark 4 orange dots in the right middle box of the noughts and crosses board. Presenter puts the card on the bottom of the pile.]

Black Team's turn and they got another one. They might put their one... here. So, you can put the dots in any box. It doesn't matter if someone has already used it.

[Presenter flips over another card and it is one. They pick up the black marker and write 1 in the top right corner under the 4. They mark one black dot in the right middle box of the noughts and crosses board, adding to the 4 orange dots already in the box. Presenter puts the card on the bottom of the pile.]

Now the Orange Team, Iron Man's team got a 6. Now they can't put it here or here because it would be too many dots.

[Presenter flips over another card and it is 6. Presenter points to the top right box with one dot in it and the right centre box with 6 dots in it.]

You can only have 6 in each of the 9 boxes, so they might go... here. It's a good move actually.

[Presenter picks up the orange marker and writes 6 underneath the one in the top right corner and marks 6 orange dots in the middle box of the noughts and crosses board. Presenter puts the card on the bottom of the pile.]

Alright, and Batman's team oops, sorry, forgot to record their 6, Batman's team got a 2, and they might go here.

[Presenter flips over another card and it is 2. They pick up the black marker and write 2 underneath the 6 in the top right corner and mark 2 black dots in the top right corner box, adding to the one black dot already in that box of the noughts and crosses board. Presenter puts the card on the bottom of the pile.]

Ok, Orange Team's turn again.

[Presenter flips over another card and it is 3. They pick up the orange marker and write 3 underneath the 2 in the top right corner and mark 3 orange dots in the top right corner box, adding to the 3 black dots already in that box of the noughts and crosses board. Presenter puts the card on the bottom of the pile.]

Oh, oh, three, and look, there's a 3 here, so they're going to record their 3 and make another collection of 6.

That's getting close now because someone might be able to soon get 3 6s in a row.

[DESCRIPTION: Presenter points to the middle and top right boxes containing 6 dots each. They run their finger across the noughts and crosses board in a diagonal motion, highlighting the empty box in the bottom left corner.]

OK. Batman now got a 4.

[DESCRIPTION: Presenter picks another card and it is 4. They pick up the black marker and write 4 underneath the 3 in the top right corner and mark 4 dots in the top middle box of the noughts and crosses board. Presenter puts the card on the bottom of the pile.]

Whoops. OK, Iron Man, your turn.

And he got a two, he's getting a lot of luck.

[Presenter flips over another card and it is 2. They pick up the orange marker and write 2 underneath the 4 in the top right corner and mark 2 dots in the top middle box of the noughts and crosses board, adding to the 4 black dots already in the box. Presenter puts the card on the bottom of the pile.]

Lucky Batman's got more skills.

Let's go.

[Presenter flips over another card and it is 6.]

And Batman got a six! So, he also got lucky. So actually, what happens now is that Bat Team could win in two ways. They could put six dots here 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and get 3 sixes in a row, they could also go here 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and get six in a row. Which one do you think they should choose?

[Presenter picks up the black marker and writes 6 underneath the one in the top right corner. They then indicate that they could put 6 dots in the bottom left corner box to get 3 6s in a row diagonally or 6 dots in the top left box to get 3 6s in a row across the top row.]

The diagonal? Ok. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and when you get 3 6s in a row, or you claim this spot for 3 6s in a row, you win.

[Presenter marks 6 dots in the bottom left box creating 6 dots in a diagonal row across the noughts and crosses board. Presenter draws a diagonal line across the board from bottom left-hand corner to top right-hand corner.]

Congratulations Batman! Thank you, Iron Man.

[Presenter picks up figurines and moves them as if they are talking to each other.]

Over to you to play Little Mathematicians!

First, if you'd like to learn more about the rules, you could click pause here and reenter the screen or follow the link to the 'Nrich' site.

[Screen reads –

How to play this game?

These are the rules we used to play this game, however, these are open to suggestions!

• Take turns to roll the dice or put the corresponding number of dots into a box
• You can put your dots anywhere, BUT, you can’t have more than 6 dots in any box
• You have to put all of you dots in the one box
• You win if you finish the row, column or diagonal of complete boxes (6 dots in each)
• If you can’t go, you miss a turn.

After you’ve played a few times, you could try a few variations

• Change the total. So instead of Dotty 6, make it Dotty 12 or Dotty 21, for example
• Change the number cards you see. So instead of numbers 1 – 6, you could make cards from 1 – 10, or only use odd numbers, etc.
• Change the grid from 3 by 3 to 4 by 4

From: NRICH maths https://nrich.maths.org/7337/note]

This game is really useful for helping young learners with some key mathematical skills including cardinality, counting, representations and combining quantities.

Like this game, like many others, is really useful help for helping students develop mathematical reasoning, as they learn to strategise and increase their chances of winning.

Games provide really powerful context for the practising of skills, and they can easily be adaptable, so we hope you enjoy this game and have fun playing Mathematics! Over to you, all of the mathematicians, big and small.

[End of transcript]