Naming, Classifying, and Angle Pairs: A Rummy Game

Here is an activity that I tried recently.  I try to incorporate card games into my class whenever I can.  I find it somewhat sad that  need to teach my kids how to play card games but once they know how to play, I can repeat the activity with various content throughout the year.  Rummy games work well with anything where you can come up with 3-4 representations of the same item.  In this case I used vocabulary words, diagrams, and notation to create sets.

I have also used similar Rummy games for various graphing practice (match the table, function, graph, verbal description).

Once the students know how to play Rummy (or any other game), they enjoy the game aspect more than a traditional worksheet for practice.  I typically have kids yelling with excitement when they complete a set.  I even occasionally have kids bending the rules of Rummy to help their classmates form the sets that they need since they will sometimes play with their cards visible to other players rather than hiding them.