Stacking races games

Numbers, ordinal numbers, dates, days of the week, months and times

Instructions for teachers

Cut up one pack of cards. Divide the class into teams of two to four students and give them about 20 blocks each. If you don’t have enough blocks, you can also use paper cups, classroom objects such as erasers, etc.  

The teacher or a student picks one card and reads out the words and/ or holds it up and the teams race to make a tower or towers of the suitable height quickest, for example a tower of nine blocks if you said “September” or four towers of one, nine, zero and one block for “Nineteen oh one”.

Some of the packs have trick cards that make no sense, in which case students shouldn’t even touch their blocks. Towers must be able to stand on their own without the students holding them, but their tower falls over they can just try again. When one team has built a tower to the right height, get them to say and/ or write what the tower represents and/ or count up the tower or towers (“One o’clock. Two o’clock” etc).

When you have played a few rounds, students can write more cards to test each other with.

Numbers stacking race games

Numbers

one	two	three	four
five	six	seven	eight
nine	ten	eleven	twelve
thirteen	fourteen	fifteen	zero
oneteen	twoteen	fiveteen	tenteen

 

Ordinal numbers stacking race game

first	second	third	fourth
fifth	sixth	seventh	eighth
ninth	tenth	eleventh	twelfth
thirteenth	fourteenth	fifteenth	twentieth
oneth	twoth	threeth	fourst

 

Dates stacking races game

The packs below can be used separately or you can combine them with ordinal numbers above with two or more towers representing the different parts, e.g. numbers and months (“January 12^th”), days and dates (“Monday 7^th”), days and full dates (“Monday 13^th February”). For example, “January 12^th” would be one tower of just one block and then a second tower of twelve blocks.

Days of the week stacking race game

You will need to decide which day is the beginning of the week (Monday or Sunday) and drill students on that before playing this game.

Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday
Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Sunday	Blahblahday	Jubjubday

 

Months stacking race game

January	February	March
April	May	June
July	August	September
October	November	December
Twouary	Threecember	Jarch

 

Years stacking race game

Students make one stack for the century and another for the decade and year, e.g. one tower of seventeen blocks then one tower of three blocks for “Seventeen oh three”, or one tower for each figure, e.g. one block then nine blocks then one block then fourteen blocks for “nineteen fourteen”.

nineteen fourteen	nineteen oh one
eighteen oh five	two thousand and one
twenty sixteen	twenty ten/ two thousand and ten
seventeen ten	nineteen eighteen
fourteen oh four

Times stacking race games

Times with o’clock stacking race game

Note that the last two are not correct English and so are tricks.

one o’clock	two o’clock
three o’clock	four o’clock
five o’clock	six o’clock
seven o’clock	eight o’clock
nine o’clock	ten o’clock
eleven o’clock	twelve o’clock
thirteen o’clock	twenty five o’clock

 

Simple times with a.m. and p.m. stacking race game

Students can stack above twelve for the afternoon times, or make one tower for each figure, e.g. a tower of one and a tower of three to mean “13:00” for “one p.m.”

one a.m.	two a.m.
three a.m.	four a.m.
five a.m.	six a.m.
seven a.m.	eight a.m.
nine a.m.	ten a.m.
eleven a.m.	twelve a.m.
one p.m.	two p.m.
three p.m.	four p.m.
five p.m.	six p.m.
seven p.m.	eight p.m.
nine p.m.	ten p.m.

 

Simple times with “in the morning” etc stacking race game

Students can stack above twelve for the afternoon times, or make one tower for each figure, e.g. a tower of one and a tower of three to mean “13:00” for “one o’clock in the afternoon”

one o’clock in the morning	two o’clock in the morning
three o’clock in the morning	four o’clock in the morning
five o’clock in the morning	six o’clock in the morning
seven o’clock in the morning	eight o’clock in the morning
nine o’clock in the morning	ten o’clock in the morning
eleven o’clock in the morning	twelve o’clock in the afternoon
one o’clock in the afternoon	two o’clock in the afternoon
three o’clock in the afternoon	four o’clock in the afternoon
five o’clock in the evening	six o’clock in the evening
seven o’clock in the evening	eight o’clock at night
nine o’clock at night	ten o’clock at night

 

 Times with minutes stacking race game

Students put one block per hour in the left-hand tower and one block per five minutes in the right-hand tower, e.g. two blocks and eleven blocks to mean “Two fifty five” or “Five to three”. Alternatively, they can make one tower for each figure, e.g. two blocks then five blocks then five blocks for “five to three”. 

The numbers above fifty five are tricks, so students shouldn’t touch their blocks if they hear those numbers.

one	two	three
four	five	six
seven	eight	nine
ten	eleven	twelve
oh five	ten	fifteen
twenty	twenty five	thirty
thirty five	forty	forty five
fifty	fifty five	sixty
sixty five	seventy	seventy five

Times with past and to stacking race game

Students can make one tower per figure, or one tower for the hours and one tower for the minutes with one block per five minutes (e.g. eight blocks for “twenty to”).  

“Half to” is a trick, so students shouldn’t touch their blocks if they hear that. You could also add “o’clock”, in which case students should put no blocks in the right-hand tower.

five past	ten past
(a) quarter past	twenty past
twenty five past	half past
twenty five to	twenty to
(a) quarter to	ten to
five to	half to
one	two
three	four
five	six
seven	eight
nine	ten
eleven	twelve

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