My goal when introducing logarithms is to build fluency. Log war is the perfect activity because it is a fun and engaging way to practice logarithms without realizing it. My students love a competition and wanted to play round after round. This is one of my favorite activities I do all year. I hope you can use it and your students enjoy it as much as mine do.
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Log War: Rules
War is a popular card game – or at least I thought it was. When I asked my students if they were familiar with the card game war, I got a lot of blank stares. Who are these kids and what do they do in their free time? I was shocked!
Fortunately, war is a quick game to explain!
- Get in groups of 3 (pairs can work, but it takes a long time to win).
- Deal the cards face down until the deck is divided evenly.
- Each player will place their stack of cards face down in front of them without looking at the cards.
- All players flip over their top card at the same time.
- Evaluate each of the logarithms and the player with the highest value wins all cards in play and places them face down in their stack.
* If the highest cards are the same value, it is war!
The players with the tie takes one card and places it face down and turns a second card face up. The player with the highest value wins all cards in play. - Game continues until one player collects all of the cards. However, this is where I changed the rules to keep all students engaged and practicing. Because they were in groups of 3, I declared two winners after one student ran out of cards.
I did not allow my students to use a calculator. They could have some scratch paper – especially if they used the challenge problems. The challenge problems are really good for not only evaluating the logarithms with fractional answers, but determining which fractions are larger than others.
My students did not want to stop playing. Some of the comments my students made at the end of the class were:
This was the best class.
Can we play again tomorrow?
This was so much fun, I wish math were like this everyday!
I love this part of teaching where students are learning, having fun, and actually enjoying math! Occasionally I can’t help myself and have to play the game with them. They love it when I join in – especially if they beat me!!
Log War: Storage
Use colorful cardstock and laminate the cards for long-term use. I can’t tell you how handy it is to have different color decks. Students will accidentally drop a card on the floor and I know immediately which deck it belongs to.
Use photo boxes to keep puzzles, games, and activities organized and label the individual photo boxes with the name of the activity.
Being able to quickly grab what I need when I need it is a must-have for my classroom.
Log War: Download
I keep most of my resources on Teachers Pay Teachers. Most are low-cost or free because my goal is to help teachers as much as possible with good and affordable resources.
I truly hope you and your students enjoy this game. Let me know in the comments if you tried the game and how it goes.
What are some of your favorite logarithm activities? If you need more ideas, check out my Logarithm Activities to Increase Student Engagement and Fluency!
