Crib Points & Cribbage Years 4 - 8

Summary Cribbage has been around for at least 400 years. It is a game between two players who race their markers, in this case Plugs, around a board. Movement is based on a hand of cards and particular rules for counting them. The game is full of mathematical skill practice, provides opportunity for counting concepts to develop in a relaxed social situation and suggests several deeper investigations. It's fun to play and has the potential to be played at home. The activity below is divided into two parts - Crib Points and Cribbage. Crib Points uses part of the Cribbage game as the source of a simpler mini-game. Learning Crib Points involves lots of exploring of number combinations and mental arithmetic and allows the children to build counting strategies applicable to the full game. For many classes Crib Points will be as much as you need for a rich threaded activity. Development towards the full game can happen over time and need not be seen as the objective. Cribbage is a recognised adult game with its own international competitions. Perhaps by teaching your children to play it you can develop a Cribbage tournament across one or more levels of the school and even be responsible for the next world champion. The full Cribbage game uses Poly Plug sets as the score board for a more involved game with three parts per hand. Both Crib Points and Cribbage are suitable for threading. Materials Two Poly Plug sets per pair One pack of playing cards per pair - standard 52 card pack

Procedure Step 1 - Crib Points Step 2 - Cribbage Step 3 - Extensions Crib Points Crib Points uses the Set Up and Show & Count parts of Cribbage to create a mini-game that can be as short as one hand each to see who gets the higher score, or could be the best of three or best of five hands each. The dealer has the advantage in both Crib Points and Cribbage, because they gain an extra score from a second set of cards called The Crib. Therefore a game of Crib Points must be at least one deal each to be fair. To learn the scoring system, start with a discussion of what your children already know about card games. Gather them at a central table, or on the floor. It may help if you have a large size pack of cards. Your Interactive White Board software might even be able to supply a spread out pack of cards.

Content addition facts beyond 10 addition facts to 10 complementary addition counting group (or skip) counting making/recording groups of 10 mathematical conversation number line - ordering, operations operations - whole number problem solving sorting & classifying tallying visual and kinaesthetic representation of number

Today we will start to learn a new card game that will help you with your maths. I think you probably already know some things about playing cards, so I am going to ask you a few questions.

An important number in this new game is fifteen. I have a pack of cards here. I am going to spread them out so we can see most of them. The face cards are worth 10 and Aces are worth 1. Yousef, can you find two cards that add to fifteen please?

Another important part of this new game is making pairs. Sandra, find me two cards that make a pair.

Ask a few more children to make pairs and explain that a pair of any cards (two of a kind) counts for 2 points. Record these details on the board as you go. Challenge children to select five cards that count at least one fifteen and a pair. Can you get 15 and a pair with four cards? ... three cards? ...two cards? Now suppose we had three of a kind like this ... Andrew can you see a pair inside the three? ... Show it to me. ... Juanita can you make another pair from some of these? ... Greta, what about a different one? ... Are there any more ways to do it? Summarise that three of kind includes three pairs and it is called a Pair Royal and it counts for 6 points. Add Pair Royal = 6 points to your board list. There is one Pair Royal that counts 2 extra points because it is also a fifteen. Which one? Beside the scoring rules on the board write: Sometimes a hand of cards can score in more than one way. Keep your eyes open. I hope one of you mathematicians is about to ask What happens if it's four of a kind? Well that's called a Double Pair Royal and it counts for 12 points. Add this scoring rule to your list. Now instead of three of a kind, we might have three in a row. Abdullah could you make me any three in a row please? Explain that this is called a Run and it counts for 3 points because there are three cards in the run. Ask various children to make Runs of 3, 4, 5 cards, noting again that in this game Ace comes before 2, not after King. Record: Run of 3 or more cards = 1 point per card. Okay one more thing before we can practice getting scores ready for our new game. If we have four or five cards of the same suit, that also counts for points. It's called a Flush and counts for the number of cards used. Jan, make me a 4 card Flush. ... That's 4 points, but does it count for other points as well? Explore a few Flushes and record: Flush of 4 or 5 cards = 4 or 5 points. Our new game is called Crib Points and it is part of a bigger game called Cribbage. People have been playing Cribbage for more than 400 years. But before I teach you the full game I want you to get used to counting cards using the Crib Points game. Use two children to demonstrate how to play a Crib Points game as follows. The set up procedure here is the same as in Set Up below in the Cribbage game. So children are learning how to start Cribbage at the same time as they are practising the card counting rules in a simpler game situation. Cut for dealer - lower card is the dealer. Shuffle and deal 6 cards to each player. Remaining pack is placed between the players. Each player chooses 2 cards to go face down in the dealer's extra hand called The Crib. Non-dealer cuts the remaining pack and the dealer turns up the top card of the bottom section. Non-dealer replaces the cut and dealer places this Turn Up card on top of the remaining pack. Card counting now takes place using the four cards in the hand and Turn Up card. See examples below in How To Score. Now, I have a pack of cards for each pair. I want you to play like we have just seen and really help each other count all the points in your hand. You can make a game of it if you want to and use your calculator to help you keep score. The extra scores for His Heels and His Hat can be introduced as the children play. Also Poly Plug can be used to keep score in a similar manner to the Cribbage game below where a 'counting track' is created by pushing out two columns of plugs for each player and players move a plug around the track to keep score. Documents created by Toni Pfeiffer to support Crib Points in her Year 1. See links in Step 4 in the column to the right.

Tales from the Crib(bage) Toni Pfeiffer, Year 1 & Erika Tokich, Year 3 Good Shepherd Primary School, Amaroo As part of their six day professional development program, Working Like A Mathematician, organised by the Catholic Education Office, Canberra Goulburn, Toni and Erika agreed to explore the Crib Points section of Cribbage as appropriate for their children. This is a brief outline of how the journey developed in each of their classrooms as they threaded it into their curriculum. Given the activity is designed for Year 4 to 8, both teachers were setting themselves a serious professional learning challenge. Toni Step 1 Exploring a deck of cards Investigating ways to make a variety of numbers, for example, Friends of 10 and 15. Concept of picture cards = 10 and A =1 Steps 2 & 3 Making 15 Concept of picture cards = 10 and A =1 Small mixed ability groups Step 4 Introduce the following scores one at a time supported by a reminder page (see links which are all PDF files). Game set up Pairs Making 15 Playing mat Small mixed ability groups Steps 5 & 6 Playing the game Mental addition Discarding into the Crib Groups of 2 or 3 Next Steps Pair Royal Run Scoring with Poly Plugs Erika Toni and I went about it slightly differently with the different year levels. This is how I have used it and I began before the school had finalised Calculating Changes membership. I based my start on the short time we had used the activity during our PD days. Step 1: Introducing cards Step 2: Playing snap Step 3: Modelling "How to Play" and "How to Score" (few sessions) Step 4: Playing as a shared activity in small groups using 15s and pairs only Step 5: Introducing multiple pairs and runs to the shared activity Step 6: Playing in guided rotations independently following two or three experiences as a shared activity Step 7: Playing in guided rotations using scoring sheets Steps 3 - 7 in particular were structured to gradually release responsibility to the learners. My thinking was to concentrate on the Crib Points (maths) rather than getting hung up on the rules of the game. I do see value in this activity, but it was a long process to introduce and get going. I think it would be better suited to upper primary?

Year 1, Good Shepherd Primary School, Amaroo. The playing mat can be a big help in managing the game.

Depending on your children's age, with just a little practice, the class will be ready for the full Cribbage game. In this new game the Poly Plug boards become essential to a new phase of the game called Plugging (Pegging in the international game) which allows players to use the same card counting rules to gain even more points.

Cribbage
Cribbage (or Crib for short) is a racing game between two players. The aim is to collect 121 points (61 if you really need a shorter game) and record them on the Poly Plug Cribbage Board as they are gained. Points are gained from the deal and play of a hand of cards as explained below.
(Some children may have access to a family pegging board for Crib. Usually they are wooden rectangles with holes drilled to take pegs or match sticks, but there are all sorts of fancy variations.)

• One player plugs with blue and uses the track on one side of the board. The second player plugs with yellow on the other side of the board.
• Both players move up the outside of their 20 point track and down the inside.
• Movement is marked by two plugs. The 'front' one shows the current total. The back one shows the 'previous' total.
• The winner must move around the track six times and have a final move that takes them at least one step off the board.
• The game ends the moment one player 'plugs out' with 121 points, even if they have more points they could count.
• You can't win with 120 points.

Each hand in Cribbage has three stages. It takes several hands to complete the game.

• Set Up
• Plugging to 31
• Show & Count

How To Score Face cards = 10, Ace = 1 The Turn Up card is only used in the Show & Count part of the game. Both players can use it. Players must 'announce' why they are getting points as they count them. Scoring rules are for all parts of the game. Rules are in bold. Other text is explanation. Main Scores Fifteens Any combination of cards totalling 15 is worth 2 points. Example: If a player holds 10, 5 , 4, A and the Turn Up is K, the count is announced as...     Fifteen two - 10 + 5.     Fifteen four - 10 + 4 + A.     Fifteen six - K + 5.     Fifteen eight - K + 4 + A. Pairs Any two cards 'of a kind' is a pair and counts for 2 points. Example: If a player holds 7, 7, 10, Q and the Turn Up is Q, the count is announced as...     Four for pairs - two 7s and two Qs. Multiple Pairs Three of a kind and four of a kind are counted as multiple pairs. 3 of a kind is called a Pair Royal = 6 points. 4 of a kind is called a Double Pair Royal = 12 points. Example: If a player holds 10, 10 , 8, 8 and the Turn Up is 10, the count is announced as...     Six for a Pair Royal plus two for a pair makes eight. Example: If a player holds 7, 7 , 7, 6 and the Turn Up is 7, the count is announced as...     Twelve for a Double Pair Royal. Runs Any sequence of three or more consecutive cards is a run. The score is the number of cards in the run. During Plugging, the run does not have to be in order, but the run cannot be broken by an out of sequence card. Example: If a player holds A, 2, J, Q and the Turn Up is K, the count is announced as...     Three for a run - J, Q, K - A =1 so is not in the run. Example: During Plugging, if the cards are played in this order - 4, 2, 3, 5, 6 - the person who plays the 3 scores 3 for a run, then the player of the 5 scores 4, and the player of the 6 scores 5 Example: During Plugging, if the cards are played in this order - 4, 2, 3, 4, 3 - the person who plays the first 3 scores 3 for the run 4, 2, 3, then the person who plays the second 4 scores 3 for the run 2, 3, 4, but the person who plays the second 3 scores nothing for it because the 3 does not complete a run Example: During Plugging, if the cards are played in this order - 4, 2, 6, 5, 3 - the person who plays the final three scores 5 for the five card run, but nothing is scored before them because there was no run. Flushes A flush is a collection of four cards of the same suit, not including the Turn Up. Four flush cards in the hand and a Turn Up card of the same suit counts as a five point flush. When counting the Crib, the flush must be five cards. In the Crib a four card flush is not counted. Flushes don't score during Plugging. Special Scores His Heels The person (always the dealer) who Turns Up a Jack gets two points and announces...     Two for his heels or sometimes Two for doing it. His Hat When Showing & Counting a person who has the Jack of the same suit as the Turn Up card gets an extra point and announces...     One for his hat or sometimes One for his nob. Some special points occur during Plugging: 31 If a person plays a card that makes the total exactly 31 they get 2 points and announce...     Thirty-one for two. Go Point If a person can't play a card without going over 31 they announce Go and the other player continues laying cards until they either reach Thirty-one for two or can't play without going over 31 and announces...     One for go. Last Point Sometimes the last card played may not involve either 31 or Go. The player who plays this last card gains one point and announces...     One for last. Print this PDF file of Scoring Rules to distribute for reference.

Set Up Players cut the deck and the lower card is the first dealer. Dealing alternates following each hand. Dealer gives six cards to each player using a one for you/one for me pattern. Remaining cards are placed between the players. Players choose two of their cards to give to the Crib, which becomes an extra hand for the dealer. In this photo the first dealer is the person on the right and each player now has 4 cards to use for Plugging. The non-dealer cuts the pack and the dealer turns up the top card of the bottom section. This is called the Turn Up card. In this case the Turn Up happens to be a Jack so the dealer announces Two for his heels and plugs 2 points. Players are now ready to begin Plugging. Our sample game continues below. The Turn Up card is not used in Plugging.

Plugging to 31

Step 1 Players alternate showing their four cards one at a time. Non-dealer starts. They announce a progressive total which cannot exceed 31. In this case the non-dealer started with a 7, announcing Seven, and the dealer played an 8 for Fifteen two, which has been plugged.		Step 2 Non-dealer has played a 6 and announced Twenty-one for a run of 3 and plugged accordingly.
Step 3 Dealer has played 9 and announced Thirty for a run of 4... Non-dealer has responded with Go because they don't have an Ace to make exactly 31... So the dealer also gets a Go Point and plugs 5 points in total.		Step 4 The first set of matched cards is turned over and play starts from zero again. The opponent of the person who plays the last card is the one who starts. Non-dealer starts with Seven and the dealer has responded with Fourteen for a pair and has plugged two more points.
Step 5 Non-dealer plays 5 and announces Nineteen... Dealer responds with Twenty-nine and one for the last card because both players have used all their cards. This extra point has been plugged.		Step 6 Players now begin the Show & Count stage.

Show & Count

Step 1 Non-dealer starts. Each player now includes the Turn Up card in their hand so has a five card hand for this stage. Here the non-dealer counts: Two runs of three (5, 6, 7) plus two more for a pair (7s) plus fifteen two (J + 5). The total of 10 points has been plugged.		Step 2 Next the dealer counts their hand. In this case: Fifteen two (7 + 8) plus a run of three (7, 8, 9) and two for a pair (Js). The total of 7 points has been plugged.
Step 3 Dealer counts their Crib. In this case: Fifteen two, fifteen four (J + 3 + 2 twice) plus two runs of three (2, 3, 4) plus a pair (2s) The total of 12 points has been plugged.		The dealer has also taken one red plug out of the bag to record they have been up and down the board once. Each red plug collected is worth 20 points, so the dealer's current total is 31. The non-dealer's current total is 13. The next hand begins again with the Set Up and the non-dealer becomes the dealer. Play continues like this until one player plugs out with 121 points. Once children are used to the rules it will take no more than 20 minutes to complete a game. However if the game needs to be interrupted, players should finish a hand, then record the score and the dealer. It is easy to begin again at another time from the same point.

Extensions

1. Thread Crib Points into the curriculum over several weeks - using it for a short amount of time, often - to develop mental arithmetic.
2. Explore why a Double Royal Pair counts as 12 points. The score relates to the number of pairs than can be made from four of a kind. Readers who have experienced senior high school maths could make connections for themselves with the number of ways of choosing two items from four when order doesn't count.
3. Eight cards are available during Plugging - four in each person's hand. What cards could the players have and how might they be played to make a 5 card, 6 card, 7 card or 8 card run? As the play developed, what other points would be plugged in each case?
4. Explore with the class, perhaps by keeping a chart, all the Cribbage scores that can be made with a four card hand and the Turn Up card.
5. The highest score that can be made in the Show & Count is 29. What cards do you need to get that score?
6. There are only 4 scores less than 29 that can't be made. What are they?
7. Set up a Class Cribbage Tournament.
8. Ask children to teach the game to parents at an open night.
9. Research Cribbage on the Internet.
10. Muggins: For experienced and confident players you can introduce the Muggins rule which is: If a player miscounts or misses points, their opponent can claim them after the next card is played.

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