More Math Games & Activities from Around the World
1 Three in a Row Games In most parts of the world people play some form of three in a row games The object of the game is to place your three markers in a row on the game board You have probably played Tic Tac Toe Many of these games are more complicated than Tic Tac Toe All the games are for two players sometimes for two teams You can also play them by yourself Pre tend that you are two people and play on both sides of the board This is a good way to learn a new game or to work out the fine points of strategy as though you were solving a puzzle The games in this chapter gradually become more complicated They begin with a simple game called Nine Holes from England with three counters for each player As you go through the chapter the games will require more counters Finally you come to Murabaraba from southern Africa in which each player starts with 12 counters Of course the game board also becomes more complex as you go from one game to the next In the last activity you will analyze the connection between the type of game board and the number of counters These games call for two kinds of counters or markers Kings and princes used to play with beauti ful pieces made of gold and ivory Ordinary people used stones or seeds or peeled and unpeeled twigs You can also use red and black checkers or two kinds
of coins or make your own special counters Game boards for three in a row games have been found scratched in the stones of the rooftop of an ancient Egyptian temple built 3 300 years ago and in several other ancient sites The games in this book come from many parts of the world Look up these places on a map or globe Wherever you might travel you will probably find that people play some version of these games Although you may not be able to speak their lan guages you can make friends all over the world with three in a row games TIPS TO THREE IN A ROW FUN Three in a row games require several types of game boards You will probably want boards that will last for a while Draw the lines neatly with a ruler on paper and glue the paper to cardboard or mat board It's a good idea to make a pattern on a sheet of scratch paper first Some people play games just to win and they get upset when they lose Playing a game should be fun When one player always wins the other player must always lose and may give up after a while Helping an opponent to improve his or her skills makes the game more interesting for both players Each player should have an equal chance of win ning In some games the first player to move is more likely to win Players should take turns going first in
this type of game You may want to vary the games A slight change in the rules or in the shape of the game board or in the number of counters may call for an entirely dif ferent strategy Just be sure that both players agree on the new rules before the game
Nine Holes from England Nine Holes is one of the simplest of all the three in a row games Very young children can learn to play it I read in a book on African games that four year olds in some parts of Africa like to play games similar to Nine Holes They learn to take turns and to think about their moves They also learn that there is no point in getting upset when they lose a game Nine Holes is a good introduction to Tic Tac Toe and other three in a row games Long before anyone had heard of Tic Tac Toe peo ple were playing Nine Holes It was a favorite among the boys who herded sheep and cattle While the ani mals were feeding in the pastures two boys would agree to draw the game board on the ground They would dig three rows of holes three holes in each row They would gather three stones of one kind and three of another kind and be ready to play The seventeenth century English poet Michael Drayton described the scene The unhappy wags which let their cattle stray fit Nine Holes on the heath whilst they together play Some of these unhappy wags invented strange rules for the game On the Salisbury Plain in south ern England the counters were not stones but wooden pegs stuck into the earth The players had to
