Classroom resources spotlight: Robot, Go Fish!

Robot, Go Fish is the first lesson from our Year 2 Making Robots sequence, which introduces students to the idea of multiplication as a Cartesian product. Students are shown cards depicting three different robot heads, three different bodies, and three different sets of legs, and are asked how many unique robots it might be possible to make.

In Lesson 1 students experiment with the robot part cards by playing a variant of Go Fish, with a focus on trading cards to create unique robots. Students can play strategically and competitively or collaboratively as suits the classroom. This acts as a precursor to Lesson 2: How Many Robots, which introduces systematic strategies to create every possible unique robot from the set of cards.

This sequence focuses on use of the phrase "for each", as in "for each head, nine unique robots can be made". This concept is key to developing multiplicative thinking.

The Making Robots sequence can be downloaded here.