"Hey Mrs. L, we've just invented a new fun game!"

"Oh yeah,... let me see," said Mrs.L. in her most placative teacher tone.

"It's like this, you take the chalk and you write a whole bunch of numbers along the bottom of the chalk board."

What kind of numbers?"

"ANY kind of numbers, only don't make them too hard or people won't want to play with you."

"Okay, so then what?"

"It's simple. Here are the steps:

1. Player one gets two erasers, and he slides them along the chalk tray, aiming for the largest numbers.
2. The numbers closest to the front of each eraser are then added mentally and player one records this sum on his side of the board.
3. Then player two gets the erasers and does the same thing, writing his sum on his side of the board.
4. This continues with up to four players.
5. At the end of the round, the player with the highest score wins a point."

Mrs. L. found herself at this point moving from being placative to being interested in the possibilities for this simple yet elegant game. She remarked as much to herself as to the kids, "Wow, that's great. You could use any kind of numbers, whole numbers, integers, fractions, decimals, even algebraic expressions. I LOVE it.

"Why you can play as a quick round or as a full blown tournament. You could have several games going at once if you have multiple chalkboards.

"Or you could even play it on desks using paper footballs as the erasers and masking tape with the numbers written on, taped to the middle of the desk.

"Or you could use chalk on the floor and tennis balls. Wow, I'm really liking this. Come on let's play."