Contig is a game that intermediate-grade children love to play, but can be enjoyed by high school algebra students as well. I have also used the game in my computer science classes when order of operations is discussed.
The game provides drill and practice in the four basic arithmetic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, as well as opportunities for basic problem solving and order of operations.
Materials
The materials required are simple: Three dice, a score pad, counters
or markers, and a playing board.
You may print the following board and photocopy it. Then just let the students put "X"s over the numbers that are found.
Click here to see the Contig playing board
RULES OF THE GAME
1. Two to five players may play Contig.
2. To begin play, each player in turn rolls all three dice. The player with the smallest sum begins play. Play then progresses from left to right (or counter-clockwise).
3. The first player rolls the three dice. He must use one or two operations on the three numbers shown on the dice. He then covers the resulting number on the board with a marker. When he has finished his turn, he passes the dice to the player on his right. A player may not cover a number that has been previously covered.
4. To score in Contig, a player must cover a number on the board which is adjacerit vertically, horizontally, or diagonally to another covered number. One point is scored for each adjacent covered number.
5. When a player rolls the dice and cannot produce a number that has not already been covered, he must pass the dice to the next player. If he incorrectly passes the dice, believing he has no play when in fact he does have a play, any of the other players may call out the mistake. The first player to call attention to the error may place his marker on the proper uncovered number. This does not affect the turn of the player citing the error.
6. A cumulative score is kept for each player. A player is eliminated from further play in a game when he fails in three successive turns to produce a number that can be covered. When all players have experienced three successive failures to produce a coverable number, the game ends. The player with the highest cumulative score wins.
VARIATIONS OF CONTIG
1. For a faster game, allow only five turns for each player. The player with the highest score after five rounds would be the winner.
2. Use a one-minute timer to time the turn of each player. This will tend to speed up the game.
3. Let any player challenge an opponent if the opponent does not choose the number that will score the maximum number of points. The challenger should then receive the difference between the number of points scored by the chosen number and the greater number of points that could have been scored.
4. Let students play it as a solitaire game, again with a predetermined number of turns.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. How were the numbers used in Contig selected?
2. Why are some numbers between 1 and 216 left off the Contig board?
3. How many ways can you cover each number in Contig?
4. Would it be possible to use all the numbers from 1 to 216 on a Contig board if the dice went from 1 to 10?
REFERENCE - F .W. Broadbent, Contig, Arithmetic Teacher (May 1972).338- 390.