Rack-O

Eventually, I would like to compile a list of the best math games for kids. This game from the 1950’s would make the cut. Is it the most fun game that I’m going to pull out in my seventies when it’s just my husband and I home alone on a Friday night? Probably not, but you know what? Maybe. It’s not the most exciting game, but it’s satisfying. There is some strategy in there, but also a healthy dose of luck. It’s simple to learn and easy to play. This one is a winner in my book, particularly if you have a child who you are tryign to get more comfortable with double digit numbers.

Rack-O Details

Product: Rack-O
Company: Winning Moves Games (originally Milton Bradley)
Website: https://winning-moves.com/product/Rack-O.asp
Recommended Age Range: Box says 7 and up, but younger kids can play as well. They just might need someone to help them score at the end.
Price Range: ~$12
Amazon Product Page (Affiliate Link)

Review

My biggest complaint about this game is that since I have four kids, I can’t play too. I really prefer games that allow up to 6 players, since that’s the size of my family, but we can’t always get what we want. Actually, if I really wanted to, I could buy a second box and then just double up and I think that would work great. The game is cheap enough, that it wouldn’t even be that expensive. I don’t think I will, mainly just because my game closet is already overflowing, but it’s nice to know that would work in case my kids ever developed a Rack-O obsession.

The premise is simple. You start with 10 cards in your rack in a random order. The cards have numbers between 1 and 60. Players take turns drawing cards and replacing cards in their rack until ALL of the cards are in order from smallest to largest. Then they yell Rack-O and are declared the winner. It literally takes about 2 minutes to learn and only about 15 minutes to play. Sometimes even just a few minutes if someone gets really lucky!

I think this is a great math game for kids who are learning to understand double digit numbers. Even if they were just working on their teens, you could remove all the numbers higher than 19 and tell the child you are only going to play with the first 5 slots instead of using all 10. This will allow children to understand concepts of greater than and less than in a fun, low pressure, motivating way. As they get better at this skill, you could gradually increase the number of cards and slots used until they can play the full game.

I also love that this game encourages critical thinking skills. There is an end goal of having your numbers in order from lowest to highest. The strategy for making this more likely to be possible probably won’t be obvious to all kids. As a tip, you can tell kids to try to make the card numbers closely match the numbers on the rack itself, because this will leave the cards fairly evenly spaced and prevent them from backing themselves into a corner. However, as they play more and get better, their intuition for good decisions will improve.

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