Last Updated on October 13, 2023 by Editorial Team
What is an order of operations? Well, it is the sequence in which one needs to perform calculations if the question demands them to do multiple operations at once. In real-life scenarios, there come situations when you need to do more than one calculation at a time.
For example, every item may have a different price in a shop. When you need to do the total amount spent, you segregate items and multiply the number of items with the corresponding value first. Then, you do the total. It is nothing but the application of the order of operations concept.
Learning it may not be easy if you are not fluent in calculations. But, no worries! You can take the help of games and activities to have the cranial workout needed for mastery-based learning. We have curated here an exhaustive list of games and activities that traverse you through the order of operations in a more practical manner.
Order of operations games and activities for beginners
1. High-stakes Heist
It is an interesting game where the student has to apply the order of operations to open the vault. The student will select two numbers and a sign of operation. Then the dial becomes active which needs to be moved to select the answer of the operation performed. To register the answer, a sign of the tick has to be clicked. The next step of the operation appears.
This game is suitable for practicing quick calculations. Since every step is demonstrated in solving the corresponding operation, you attain mastery as well as fluency in solving such problems. Try to solve it without pen and paper, it helps you improve mental math calculations.
To add to the challenge, this game is designed in a time-pressed manner and requires students to do calculations faster, or else they may be ousted or caught! That is how it retains the essence of the heist and offers a practice of order of operations too.
2. Royal Family Rescue
Students are on a mission to rescue the Royal Family. They take the role of armor or Sally first. The challenge is to solve the order of operations problem’s stages and move up the ladder. The task requires you to select the operation and the numbers which you choose to solve first.
It is a self-explanatory game and can be played individually or you may play it with your friend while performing the operations turn-wise. The game gives you a hint of the correctness of choice as the operation window opens only when you have selected numbers and operations in the incorrect order. This online game is pure fun and also offers the requisite mental workout required to attain fluency in operations.
3. Who wants to be a hundredaire
Solve order of operations problems and be a hundredaire! It is an online fiesta of mental calculations where the learners do mental calculations and move to higher levels of earnings. Students can make impressive progress by playing it in a group. By trying to reach the highest earnings sooner than the competitors, the students can attain fluency in calculations in the process.
While mastering the sequence of operations, you may come across questions where parentheses are missing. In such a case you require following the order of Division, Multiplication, Addition, and Subtraction. If you follow the left-to-the-right approach, the answer may be different and erroneous as well.
Hence, this game may acquaint you with cognitive dissonance; which means you feel you know the answer but the outcome comes out to be different. The chance of doing ample practice replaces this dissonance with confidence; the game offers precisely this opportunity to practice in a time-pressed manner.
4. Hexingo – Order of Operations Game
Hexingo is a challenging yet fun game to practice the order of operations. Teachers can give their students access to this game to support classroom instruction. We bet your students won’t mind practicing math for some more time if they get to learn math in a game format.
Players can select which operations they want to practice and the number of operations every question must consist of. This allows flexibility so students can concentrate on the operations they need to work on more. The game presents queries one after the other until the player gets four correct answers in a single row and wins the game!
5. Order of Operations
Math Frog brings you another simple yet effective online resource to help students work on the skills required to solve questions containing multiple operations. The page highlights the basics of how order of operation questions must be solved. This is particularly helpful for students who have difficulty remembering the correct order for solving such questions.
In this time-based game, questions appear on screen, and players must solve them mentally to find the solution. They must enter their answer in the space provided and click ‘Enter.’ A small scoreboard on the right displays the number of right and wrong answers along with the time left to play the game.
6. Game with dice
Engaging students in learning how to do multiple operations in the correct order requires gamified instructions. The focus of gamified activities is on enhancing the thinking ability to arrive at the correct way of doing multiple calculations. One such activity is playing with dice. You can roll the die about five times and note the numbers on the board.
Now there are two approaches possible. In the first approach, you may write signs of operations between the numbers and ask them to find the solution. In the second one, you may write a number first on the board. Ask students to put operational signs from the bracket, of, division, multiplication, addition, and subtraction, between the five numbers so that the result is equal or closest possible to the answer. This game offers an agreeable platform to do mental math. You get the practice for approximation and estimation as well from this game.
7. Solve Puzzles
Puzzles are available both online and offline. You can create a few on your own as well. One of the interesting puzzles that I like the most is making an order of operations clock. In this activity, you will make a combination of numbers of your choice and put operations in a manner that corresponds to the hours.
This means you can make equations like 1+4/4*2-1 to correspond with the hour one of the analog clocks. Similarly, move on to other numbers and create corresponding questions. It is quite suitably challenging for beginners and drives them to achieve operational fluency.
Order of operations activities and games – Important outcomes
Why is it required to play games or perform activities to learn operations’ sequence? Well, the question is valid and finds its answer in the smiling faces of kids who otherwise struggle with numeric calculations. Simply put, these activities and games take the math worry away and assert frequent practice.
Games and activities are designed with a problem in focus. Thus, students build their abilities to understand and strategize the ways that can promote practical learning. When you are trying to achieve an objective in the game, you are also practicing the virtues of responsibility and authority. Thus, social skills development comes as a nice bonus.
Learning difficulties hamper the learning curve. Students trying to work around the difficulties may find correct remediation in games and activities. They may improve their questioning and reasoning abilities as these gamified versions of instructions boost intellectual curiosity.
Conclusion
As a math beginner, you learn number sense and basic arithmetic calculations. With every passing year, the level of complexity in math problems increases. From single-digit to double-digit calculations, students move on to doing multiple operations simultaneously. It is where they need to be comfortable with the order of operations.
When a question requires division and multiplication, this order of operation matters the answer may be erroneous. Games and activities are a fun alternative to BODMAS worksheets which offer ample practice and make the whole learning process suitable for all.
I am Pratiksha Bhatt, Bachelor of Life Science, and Masters in Management Studies. I have done certification courses in early education counseling. I am a writer, a mother of a child with spelling difficulties which drove me to alternative resources of education like manipulatives and participatory activities. My areas of expertise are learning difficulties, alternative learning methods, and activity-based learning.