Math Monday Recap: Achi
Here are the followup resources from yesterday’s Math Monday.
SLIDES. Here’s are the slides in Google slide format. Feel free to use or copy them.
REPLAY. Here’s the video replay of this week’s session
Next Math Monday: String Figures
In next week’s Math Monday we will be making mathematical string figures.
To prepare, cut a 5-foot length of string (6 feet for adults) and tie the ends together to make a loop, for each person attending.
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Resources
ACHI AND RELATED GAMES
Achi. Here are the rules, along with the rules for Tant Fant — same board, but each side starts with three pieces lined up in a row.
Tapatan. Same rules, but each side starts with just 3 pieces.
9 Holes. Simpler game with simpler board. Good for very young kids.
9 Men’s Morris. Bigger board, more pieces, more rules. A classic, but I find this game quickly devolves into a “back and forth shuttle” rut.
Morabaraba. Popular in South Africa, Botswana and Lesotho. I like this game better than 9 Men’s Morris, because it forbids the “back and forth shuttle” move.
OTHER TIC TAC TOE VARIATIONS
Tic Tac Toe and other three-in-a-row games is a book by ethnomathematician Claudia Zaslavsky (she writes about how math is practiced differently in different cultures) gives the history and rules for many tic tac toe variations, including Achi and Tapatan. Out of print, but I bought a good used copy through Amazon and it was worth it — a gold mine for teachers who want to include cultural history in their math instruction.
Gobblet Gobblers published by Blue Orange is a wacky superbly original board game in which larger pieces can gobble (replace) other pieces. Requires completely new sorts of strategy.
Otrio, by Marbles the Brain Store is an elegant abstract presentation of 3d tic tac toe as a wooden board game.
Ultimate Tic Tac Toe is a mindbending recursive version of Tic Tac Toe — each of the nine squares contains a smaller 3×3 tic tac toe board, and to win a larger square you must win the game in the smaller board. Here are videos of the rules, and a winning strategy. And this site lets you play against the computer, or with a friend across the internet.
Multi, by Synapse School math educator Federico Chialvo, uses rules similar to Ultimate Tic Tac Toe, but adds an ingenious educational component that teaches kids to think about factoring and multiples.
OTHER ONLINE MATH RESOURCES
James Tanton has compiled a master list of online math events and resources here. As soon as we’re ready to scale up, this will be a great place to publicize ourselves.