The Shy Boy: Something New

Chapter Four - Damath

"Damath is a board game inspired by checkers, the only difference is that you use numbers and operations. Whoever has the highest points win." Ma'am Katherine explains and we slowly nod. "This will be your performance task for math." She adds, "uyyy."

"I have a cup with me, ten numbers, ten pairs. Although there will be one that's a dot, that means they get to choose who's team he or she will be joining with. So bale [basically] there will be one team with three members." She explains holding the cup in her hand, with multiple pieces of paper inside.

Daniel raises his hand, "Ma'am, whoever we get will be our opponent?" He asks and ma'am shakes her head. "No, you and your partner will work together to go against another pair." She replies, "ahhh". We nod excitedly. "One will be playing while the other can calculate the score you have, you can also both play in the game."

"The only rules are touch-move [you touch, you move.] Eat first, [eat at every time you can.] You will also subtract your remaining chips to your score by the end of the game, and no going backwards unless you will capture. Do you still remember how to calculate the scores?" She asks, "Yes ma'am." We respond.

"Okay, let's start with Wayde, don't tell anyone your number yet." She says as Wayde goes in front to get a number. He moves his hand around inside the cup for a good five seconds, and picks one up before going back to his seat.

Next was Jeff, then Xavier who was sitting beside Jeff, and so on. Xavier silently shrieks in excitement but ma'am shushes him.

"Who got the dot?" Ma'am asks and Xavier stands up happily. "Okay, you can choose later who you want to be teams with." he nods and sits back down.

"Okay, group one stand up."

Vince and Wayde stand up. Everyone cheers and laughs.

"Okay, next, group two."

Me and Maria stand up, everyone gasps and teases since me and Maria are two of the smartest in the class. "Yes!" Maria shrieks, giving me a high-five as she was just a few chairs away from me. I smile back.

Ma'am asked all the other groups to stand up pair-by-pair, Laine got ten and ended up with Zed.

Top two of the class with the guy with the lowest grades last year. That's gonna be fun. Zed is good at checkers, the only problem is that the goal in those two games are different.

Xavier decided to go with Archer and Tristan's team.

"So you will be going against the team after your number. For example, one and two will be against eachother." Maria shrieks in excitement, again, and I grin with a nod.

"There will not be any winners or losers, I will base your grades depending on the score that your team gets, okay?" Ma'am Kath tells us so that we don't get over competitive and we nod. "We will only be needing 5 boards, am I right? Because there are only ten teams with two members, each round would have two teams, how many members in each round is that?" She asks, "four!" I answer.

"Yes, twenty divided by four?"

"Five!" We all reply like little kindergarteners and ma'am nods, "Very good, children." She laughs.

"We will do this activity tomorrow. So until then, you can borrow the damath boards at the science lab to practice with your partner in your free time." Ma'am states, "Yes ma'am!" We reply.

I've never played before, but I know how to play. Me and Maria agreed that I will play and she's going to be the one calculating and helping me on the way.