Teacher’s Corner: Learning Math with Hare & Tortoise

By Jeff Au
March 3, 2006

Some of you by now might be all eager to whip out the next boardgame and play with your children. But wait…. which boardgame should you play?

Let us look at a very good Euro game – Hare & Tortoise - that is very suitable for young children and covers most of the learning objectives outlined in my introductory article “Boardgames Key to Learning”. For any children that are mathematically-challenged, play this game, offer some good incentives for winning and you can bet they’ll start taking their maths seriously.

Let me give you a brief overview of the rules for this game.

OBJECTIVE. This is a race game for up to 6 players and the objective of this game is to be the 1st hare (a close relative of the rabbit) to cross the finishing line. However it is not a simple matter of throwing dice and hoping for high dice throw. Speed alone does not win you this race (just as in the Hare & Tortoise story1).

Hare vs Rabbit http://www.vrhome.com/kidsweb/Rabbits.htm Although the common names rabbit and hare are often used interchangeably, in zoological classification the species called rabbits are characterized by their offspring that are born naked and blind, and by their habit of living in colonies in underground burrows. In contrast, species designated zoologically as hares are born furred and with vision, and the adults build a simple nest and rarely live socially. The hare is also generally larger than the rabbit and has longer ears with characteristic black markings. Moreover, the skulls of rabbits and hares are distinctly different. The hare is larger and heavier than a rabbit. With its longer hind legs and larger hind feet, it can out jump any rabbit and does not tire as quickly.

Note: I shall use the term “rabbit” for the remaining of this article as our local children are more familiar with rabbit than hare.

MOVEMENT MECHANICS. This game employs a very smart movement mechanics (typical of Euro Designer Games) that requires the children to think through their moves. Each rabbit starts with 65 carrots and 3 lettuces.

Spend carrots to move forward. To move forward, you need to spent (or eat) carrots. For each step forward, you need to spend quadratically i.e. n, n+1, n+2 carrots. The example below which help to clarify this rule:

• To move 1 step forward, you spend 1 carrot
• To move 2 steps forward, you spend 1+2 = 3 carrots
• To move 4 steps forward, you spend 1+2+3+4 = 10 carrots
• To move 10 steps forward, you need to spend 1+2+…+9+10 = 55 carrots

Now you begin to understand why this game certainly helps your kids to improve their mathematics.

The race is over 64 steps so children will immediately learn they cannot complete this race just by spending carrots because moving 10 steps would use up 55 carrots! This “problem” therefore introduces them to the concept of having to plan ahead to acquire more carrots to complete the race.

Move backwards to earn carrots. The clever movement mechanics of this game require the rabbit to move backwards in order to earn more carrots. Each step back earns you 10 carrots so if you move back 4 steps, you earn 40 carrots. This teaches children sometimes they need to take a step back in order to move two steps (or more) forward.

It’s good to eat your vegetables. The rabbit also needs to eat the 3 lettuces before it can complete the race. In order to finish one lettuce, the rabbit needs to get to a lettuce square, stays there for one turn and it can then throw away one lettuce card. And while you are staying there eating your lettuce, the other rabbits are probably running past you!! But if they don’t eat their lettuces, they can’t finish the race - even if they are the 1st to cross the finishing line.

Children learn to decide at which point in the race they should stop to eat lettuce. What better way to make children understand the importance of eating their vegetables (I mean, real veggie at the dinner table) than to model the same behavior in their games.

You cannot have too much of a good thing. The last ingenious rule says that in order to cross over the winning line, the rabbit cannot have more than 10 carrots in his hand!! This clever rule immediately foils the plan of the player who thinks he can just accumulates carrot to hundreds of them and then dash forward to complete the race!! Aha.. not so quick, Mr Speedy.

With this “Less than 10 carrots to end the race” rule, players need to balance the number of carrots they earn against the number of carrots they need to consume to move forward. Otherwise the player has to waste time to dispose of the excess carrots.

Aah… now Aesop’s famous sentence “Slow and steady wins the race” becomes clearer to the children as they understand rushing madly forward is not necessarily a winning move. It is recommended to have a reading of Aesop’s Hare & Tortoise story before or after the game.

THE LEARNING POINTS
Allow me to summarize the learning points for the children:

• Limited resources. They have limited resources (carrots) to accomplish their race. Therefore they understand the need to continue earning those resources (e.g. work to make money).

• If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Some children new to this game may just dash off towards the finishing line… only to realize later they ran out of carrot or they have not finished their lettuce. They’ll then understand the importance of planning ahead.

• Sometimes you need to pause, to reflect on the situation before moving forward. There are not enough carrots for them to make a straight beeline dash for the finishing line. They’ll need at some point in time to move backwards to earn more carrots before they can dash forward again.

• In life (as in the game), you often have to do things you do not want to, in order to achieve a longer term objective. No one wants to waste time missing one turn to eat the lettuce. However if they do not dispose of all their 3 lettuces, they cannot win the game. We can relate this to their studying. They need to do well in their studies now (eating the lettuce) so that they can get good-paying jobs or run businesses later in their life (winning the race).

We played this frequently at our Kids Games Day and the children simply enjoy the game very much. We also do Mental Arithmetic classes so this game ties in very well with our teachings.

© 2006 Rick Thornquist

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I’m sure most readers of this column already know this, but Hare & Tortoise is also an excellent game for adults.  The decision making can be pretty challenging and the game can be played quite nastily if one so desires (presumably, a kinder, gentler game will be played with the children).  One of the reasons the game has lasted over thirty years is that it’s both a great family game and a great gamer’s game. Posted by Larry Levy on Mar 3, 2006 at 08:24 PM | #

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