Negative Switch Card Game

This game comes with 90 cards in total. There are 18 ‘switch’ cards, these are the cards with the arrows on them. The rest of the cards have varying values in the range of -20 to 20. This is a great game to explore the addition of subtraction of negative numbers in sequence.

Rules of Play

- Shuffle the cards and deal out 6 cards per player.
- Players are NOT allowed to see their own cards.
- Take the remaining cards and turn over the card on the top.
- Play starts at that value. The first person to play is to left of the dealer in a clockwise direction.- Calculation always starts in the positive direction.
- The first player places their first card in the middle quickly.
- The first person in the group to say what the NEW time is, wins that placed card.
- For example, if the first card is ‘3’, and the placed card is ‘-7’, the answer is ‘-4’.
- If a ‘switch’ card is placed, the direction of calculation switches and moves negatively.
- Now if a ‘-5’ card is placed, and as calculation now moves negatively, the answer is now ‘1’. - The winner is the person who has collected the most cards at the end of the game.

Notes

Feel free to improvise your game in a manner that best suits you. This game is made to be as flexibleas possible to suit many teaching or tutoring needs.

An alternative game would be to shuffle the cards, and place 6 to 10 cards down in sequence, for example; “-5, 5, switch, 10, switch, -20”. Give a starting amount, for example; ‘0’ (zero). Then the firstperson to work out the solution at the end of the sequence wins the round. The answer for the examplewould be ‘-30’. This is a great game for larger groups, including entire classes as lead by a teacher.

This is a digital product. A download link will be sent to your email address upon purchase and you can then print as many copies as you need to use in your classroom or for home use. 

This game is also available as part of our Card Game Bundle 5 with four other games at a discount.