Slope - Ping: A Classroom Game

Here's a new game for you all:  Slope-Ping.  I wanted a game that got this students up and out of their seats and this game delivered.  

Game Objective:  Create the most slopes with ping pong balls on the board.

Educational Objective:  Practice finding slopes from a graph.

Materials:

I created my boards from pizza boxes, push pins, glue, and 4 of these grids.  

The playing cards.

12 ping pong balls (2 different colors).

Rule Document

I purchased a lot of ping pong balls on eBay and make Xs with sharpie to color half of them.

Game Set Up:

Divide the players into two teams.  Each team picks their color ping pong ball.

Place the Slope-Ping board on the playing surface between players. 

Shuffle the Slope cards and place them facedown to create the draw pile.

Game Play:

1) Draw four cards.  Each card has a different slope on it.

2) Bounce a ball.  All players “shoot” from the same side of the board (the “Negative y direction” sign will be closest to the shooter).  The ball must bounce at least once before it goes onto the board.  If your team has used all of its balls, take one off the board.  Teams take turns repeating this step until one team is able to…

3) Match any slope.  Line up 3 of your team’s balls to match the slope on one of the slope cards.  You must have 3 balls in line to match the slope.

4) Take the slope card and replace with a card from the deck.

5) Go back to step 2.

Winning the Game:

The first team to get 4 cards wins!

Note:  The students may become frustrated when their ping pong balls start bouncing all over.  I had the students create a barrier on three sides to help keep them on the board.  It also forced the students to shoot from the negative y direction.