More Than One Way to Uno

We talk about how to emphasize mathematical thinking in the normal game of Uno on our Game page. However, there are many different ways to use the cards in an Uno deck to develop mathematical thinking skills.

One alternative use is matching or sorting the cards in the deck by color or number. See if your child can take the cards they see and put them in piles based on their similarities. The more cards they have to sort through the more they have to work.

Another way to use Uno cards would be to have your child(ren) put all of the cards of one color into number order, increasing or decreasing. You could even cut your own cards out of paper to make values go higher and increase the difficulty. You could also put the numbers from one color in order and ask the child(ren) to pick a number and match that number to the same number in the other three colors.

You can also ask your child to put the cards in a pattern and see what they do. If they don’t know where to start, suggest that they alternate between colors. Another fun activity would be to give your student two cards and ask them to add or subtract them.