The Product of War

War is a classic, and applying it with the Multiplication by Heart cards (or any multiplication flash cards) gives us an easy way to reinforce fact fluency with a little extra incentive.

For 2 – 5 players.

Mix up all the flash cards (or a subset of them for a shorter game) into equal piles, and give one pile to each person. Everyone plays a card at the same time (without looking at the product), then players go around in the circle and say the product they played. Whoever plays the highest product wins all the cards, and places them on the bottom of their pile. Play until one player has all the cards. For a shorter game, just play through your pile once, and count the captured cards to see who wins.

If a player catches another’s mistake in naming their product correctly, they get a ten point bonus for that round. It’s possible to get multiple bonuses in one round!

In case of a tie, the players who tied turn up their next cards as a tiebreaker. Whoever wins that war gets all the cards from the round.

Example 1

Player 1 plays 3 × 4 and says “12.” Player 2 plays 5 × 10 and says “50.” Player 2 wins both cards.

Example 2

Player 1 plays 5 × 7 and says “35”. Player 2 player 7 × 7 and says “42.”

Player 1 catches the error and gives Player 2 another chance. Player 2 says “45”. Player 1 catches the second error, so gains 20 bonus points, making their total 55. This beats Player 2’s 49, so Player 1 wins both cards.