Playing Speed! with Grandma - Multiplication

Grandma is getting her chance to challenge the lightning fast kids in the game of Speed! I think they will win.

When I play Speed! with any of my kids they usually beat me. I'm too busy trying to figure out which card to play next while they shout "Speed" because the two cards in the center are the same. I end up getting all the cards and they win. It's a bummer for me, but they love it. Actually I love it too because they are developing their number sense, while I'm secretly laying the foundation for multiplication.

Speed! is a game I developed and began selling on amazon.com last year. There are eight decks of cards that come in a rainbow of colors. Each deck focuses on skip-counting by a different number. We have always played games for math. Adding war, Black Jack 21 and Cribbage for adding; Gin Rummy to develop strategy.

Games have made math a fun and low stress subject. We focus on the basics. After all, my math education through fifth grade was mainly addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Telling time, learning about money, rounding and other mathmatical subjects seemed to happen more during the course of life than in school.

I needed a game for multiplication several years back and thought up Speed! It worked great for my daughter and now I play with my other two children. It is working great for other families too. When we play Speed! the room gets very quiet as everyone is focused and concentrating on trying to win the race. The silence is broken by someone (usually not me) shouting Speed!

After each round the kids beg to play again. Winning the fast paced race keeps them coming back for more.