The purpose of this warm-up is for students to make sense of a problem before solving it by familiarizing themselves with a context. While students may notice and wonder many things about the image, what students notice about the number and position of the seeds and students’ experiences and questions about the game are the important discussion points.

During the Synthesis, invite students who share experience with the mancala (mahn-KAH-lah) family of games to share what they call the game, what materials they use when they play, and how they play. If time allows, or if no students share experiences with the game materials, share the facts provided in the Synthesis. Consider researching the rules of one the mancala games mentioned in the Synthesis or one of the variants mentioned by students to play with the class.

• “The picture shows a type of a game called mancala. It is one of the world’s oldest games.”
• “Many experts believe mancala was created in Africa. The game has hundreds of different names and can be played in many different ways. Most games are played with a board that has different pits or holes in it. Each player uses a certain amount of seeds that they place on their side of the board. Players might use real seeds or they may use shells, rocks, or beads.”
• “Each player takes turns placing their seeds on the board. In most games, you try to ‘capture’ more seeds than the other player.” 
• “In Ghana and the Caribbean, one popular mancala game is called Oware (oh-WAH-reh). The board has 12 pits, 6 for each player, and the game uses 32 seeds.”
• “In Sudan, one popular mancala game is called Bao (baOW-woo). The board for Bao has 28 pits, 14 pits for each player, and the game uses 64 seeds.”
• “One of the largest mancala games is called En Gehé (ehn geh-HEY) and is played in Tanzania. The board can have up to 50 pits and the players use 400 seeds!”
• “Mancala is played all over the world. This board shows a game played in India called Pallanguzhi (pah-LAHN-guhr-ee). The board has 14 pits and uses 70 seeds.”
• “What math questions could we ask about this image?” (How many seeds are there in all? How many seeds are in the holes? How many seeds are not in holes? How many more seeds are on the top than on the bottom?)

• “What does the question mark in each diagram represent?”
• “Which diagram best matches Han and Clare’s seeds and the question the story asks?”

• “What do you know? What does the story problem ask you to find?”
• “How does the diagram show the numbers that you know? How does the diagram show what you need to find?”