We love a good card game in our house! Since I’ve been teaching my oldest to count, we’ve used playing cards and other games to practice number recognition, greater / less than and more. Today I’m sharing a review of a new math game we’ve been playing: Sunya – The Magic and Wonder of Math and Science Adding & Subtracting from Sunya Publishing.
How Sunya helps us practice adding and subtraction
One reason I’m really excited to share this new math card game with you is that it is SO NEW! The company has just brought their carefully developed and market researched game to the market, and this is probably the first you’ve ever heard of it! But watch out, because I think you’ll see orange and purple Sunya cards popping up all over the place, because it’s such a fun and simple game to play.
The Sunya game comes with a deck of cards and an instruction book. In the deck are several sets of number cards 0-9. Each number card has the numeral on it, plus dots to represent the number visually. There are also 3 cards for setting up play: plus sign, minus sign, and equal sign. The rest of the deck is a selection of riddle and trivia cards that have to do with math, logic, and thinking skills – these function as the “rewards” for winning a round of play! I am hoping future decks make these riddle cards with a different graphic or color because they sometimes got mixed into the play deck (which actually was kind of a fun surprise! haha!).
Playing is pretty easy once you read through the rules. Basically, the players “build” addition and subtraction problems to play the game and “go out” (use up all their cards without needing to redraw). When they go out, they call “Sunya,” which means “I am out of cards.”
Wild cards add to the excitement (and help you get out of a tough spot!). Whenever you get “Sunya” you also get to choose a riddle / trivia card, which is fun for everyone to hear!
The game encourages cooperative play, as the players can help each other out, making suggestions for plays and offering advice when there is an incorrect play. I like this aspect of the game, because when my son helps me make a play, his confidence grows! Also he doesn’t feel bad if I help him out too!
How we played math card games with Sunya
I loved pulling out this math card game after our lessons, because telling my oldest he got to play a game for school was like handing out treats. I think playing math games is a great option for keeping the learning going, but having fun – thinking outside the worksheet!
My six-year-old quickly mastered the rules, although the game itself is still mentally challenging (in a good way) for his level.
We mainly focused on the addition part of the game, since he is only now learning subtraction and that turned out to be a little too much for him, but I look forward to being able to switch up the adding versus subtracting aspects of the game in a few weeks when he’s more solid on that skill. Once he mastered playing with me, I would sometimes have him play independently while I worked with his younger brother.
Sunya is definitely a great new math game to have in your “back pocket” as a teacher, because it is so simple to set up, play, and encourages skill development, not just competitive play.
