Integers War Card Game

Grades: 6-8

Materials Needed: One regular deck of cards per pair or group of students

Instructions: Have students pair up with a regular deck of cards.  You can have also groups of three or four; however, there will be slightly different instructions to accommodate for more players.  Explain to the students the scoring system.  I explain to the students the idea of when a business is in the red, that business is losing money or owes money.  Therefore, our red cards (hearts and diamonds) are negative.  When a company is in the black, it is making a profit.  Therefore, the black cards (spades and clubs) are positive.  Here is the value chart for the students to follow.  (I usually just draw it on the whiteboard when I initially introduce it to the class.)

The game is played following the same rules as "War"; however, instead of each player flipping one card at a time, each player flips three cards at a time.  The players then decide who has has the higher amount by adding the values of the three cards.  If there is a tie in the value, the players will flip an additional three cards and compare the value.  Whoever has the higher value keeps all 12 cards (six from the last hand and the six from the previous hand that had the same value).  Players continue to play until one person wins all of the cards.  Some variations that I incorporated was the lower value hand wins rather than the higher amount winning the hand, having three or four people playing at the same time, using one or two cards rather than three for younger students or students having difficulty with the concept, or the game ends after a certain elapses and whoever has more cards wins.  You can make your adaptations to suit your students.  The only drawback is the amount of decks of cards that you need.  I buy my cards from Costco where I can get 9 packs for between $10 to $14, which is less than $2 per pack.