Fruit Ninja - Endless possibilities in Numeracy!

Over the past few weeks, I have been using the game Fruit Ninja as a way of engaging children in their numeracy lessons. You may have read how I have used other popular iPad games such as Temple Run and Angry Birds as a stimulus in Literacy and Numeracy - to read more about it please click here.

What I have found from using these games is that the engagement and motivation from the children in the lesson is incredible. Letting them play a quick 30 second game has them completely hooked! This game is perfect for numeracy as the game generates numbers, numbers and numbers which can be used in so many different ways.

The game is simple yet very addictive - children simply swipe their fingers to chop the fruit scoring points as they do so. The game allows for single and multiplayer and here are some of the activities you could do using Fruit Ninja in Numeracy.

Using the score from a single game children could -

  • Double/Halve the score
  • +10 - 10
  • +9 +19 +99
  • x10 x100 x1000 or divide by 10, 100, 1000
  • Count in steps of any given number forwards/backwards.
  • Use the number as the answer and think of different number sentences focusing on a particular operation.
  • Partition the number
  • Multiply by any number
  • Rearrange the digits to make the smallest or biggest number.
  • Use the scores from the class for some data handling to find the most common score in the class - working on mode, median and mean.
  • Produce bar charts, line graphs, tally chart from the scores in class.
  • Problem solving - See what your score is over 30 seconds, work out how much fruit is sliced in a second and work out how much fruit would be sliced in a minute, 5 minutes, half an hour, an hour, a day.
Using the two scores from the multiplayer game children could - 

I am in no way suggesting that you use it for all these activities however if you want a lesson that will have the children completely engaged and willing to solve calculations quickly to then have another go, have a try at using this game. I am sure there are plenty of other ways this app could be used as a stimulus in Numeracy and if you have any, please comment and add them to this post.



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