Prime Climb

Product Information

In the actual game, Dan colored all the prime factors over 10 with red, but you don't have to be that constrained. You can make 11s be yellow polka dots and 13s be pink squiggles. Have fun with it! Whoever gets a single pawn to 101 wins. A perfect game when time is short. This game often takes less than five minutes. After we played a round, our facilitator challenged us to list every single space on the game board that we could be on and in one roll end up winning. Now, that was a fun problem to solve! We got a lot of mileage out of this seemingly simple problem. Especially because our answer was different than our facilitator’s answer. Then, she gave us 12-sided dice (1-12) to see how that changed our answer. All in all, very interesting! Divide by 2 (32) and multiply be 3 to end at 96! Division gets you closer to 101 than any of your other options. FAQ

Add, subtract, multiply, or divide the value of each die to your current place on the board. For example, if I’m on START and roll a 3 and 7, I can add 3 and add 7 to end on 10, add 3 and multiply by 7 to end on 21, add 7 and multiply by 3 to end on 21, or add 7 and subtract 3 to end on 4. With this Prime Climb problem, my first instinct was to draw a hundred chart to organize which numbers were one step away from winning and which numbers were more than one step away from winning. Drawing a grid and writing out the numbers 1-100 was time consuming. And, it seemed like my group was rushing ahead of me. But, I persevered at creating my visual representation. Once I started marking the numbers on my chart, my groupmates were all using my hundred chart to help come up with the next solutions. In the end, everyone was copying from my chart to their notes. You CANNOT add 9 to 26 to make 35, and then multiply 35 by 3, for if you did, you would go to 105, which is off the board. You must stay on the board at all times. (It’s not enough just to end up on the board at the end of your turn.) In normal game play, Bump and Draw Phases happen after all your moves are completed. In Double Time, you bump and draw after each move a pawn. You can draw two or more Prime cards per turn in Double Time. The end result is a heightened engagement with number operations that supports both fluency and understanding. For students encountering primes for the first time, Dan’s representation brings home the multiplicative essence of these numbers in a way that symbolic treatments rarely achieve. And for those already acquainted with primes, the game offers a peek into their limitless mysteries. Students may ponder whether numbers can be coloured in more than one way (the answer to which is what makes primes so remarkable). Or whether those red tiles will cease to appear on large boards (also remarkable).

Between deciding which move best serves their needs and figuring out how and when to deploy Prime Cards, there is a considerable amount of planning and decision making to be done with Prime Climb, which can help players hone their tactical and strategic acumen. High replay value We've been planning to write curriculum up for older grades as well, but haven't done so. Let me know if you'd like to collaborate on some high school level lessons/questions. As for the appropriate age, we recommend the game for 10 and up, and a lot is possible with older kids. If you want to open the Pandora's box of probability, for example, there are all kinds of questions to ask. A series of questions I like is: what is the minimum number of rolls it takes to move one pawn from 0 to 101? What are the odds that you'll be able to achieve this journey in the minimum number of rolls?

There is a lot of deep thinking involved when it comes to Prime Climb, from figuring out which of a series of potential moves will provide a best outcome to deciding when and where to deploy potentially game-altering Prime Cards. On what number do you have the highest chance of being able to get to 101 on your next roll? (You don’t have to use both dice rolls when you reach 101, though of course you may.) You CANNOT add the 3 and 9 to use a 12. You CANNOT multiply 3 and 9 to use a 27. You have to apply the numbers on the dice one by one. Its analog approach, however, doesn’t require an internet connection or electronic device, which can be a big plus for families looking to reduce screen time, and it retains its appeal as a casual strategy game even when students have already developed skill fluency in its underlying topics. Encourages Strategic Thinking As fun and as potentially useful an educational resource as it might be, at the end of the day Prime Climb is still a board game and may not appeal to those who don’t enjoy them. Parents looking to work on math skills that aren’t related to its gameplayIntended for two to four players, once the board and cards are laid out, each player gets two pieces of a particular color and positions themselves at the start, i.e. at 0. From these past few math teacher circles, I’ve discovered that while I’m not usually the fastest at solving problems in the group or the best at seeing unique ways of solving a problem, I do bring something to the group. I’m really good at organizing information and illustrating the problem. When I’m presented with a new problem, it takes me a while to process it. My first instinct is to pause and process the problem, then I try to come up with a way to organize the information I have. Only then, do I try to solve the problem. During your Move Phase, you add, subtract, multiply, or divide the number your pawn is on by a number you rolled and send that pawn to the resulting number. You must use all of your rolled numbers, one at a time. If you have Keeper cards, you may choose to play one or more of them before, between, or after applying your dice rolls. Your pawns may land on any space on the board, including occupied spaces. Pawns may never move to a space not on the board, such as negative numbers, non-whole numbers, or numbers greater than 101. EDUCATIONAL LEVEL: ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ If you are looking for a game that allows for practicing all four operations, pushes kids to strategize and really hounds the concept of factors and prime, this is a GREAT game! I would classify this as the math game with the HIGHEST EDUCATIONAL VALUE of every math game we have tried! It’s a wee bit on the expensive side, but the depth of the EDUCATIONAL VALUE makes it well worth it, in my opinion. EDUCATIONAL LEVEL SCORE: 5/5 ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥