Hello Nell,

I know the instructions can me confusing at times, especially since we are a visual society and like to see illustrations of the play--before, during, and after. And it would help if they were color and glossy, right? heehee.

To answer your question, if you first read the game P30 Slower Product Card Speed, it might help clarify what I am writing.

The goal is for the child be become quicker at recognizing common multiples/factors-6x8=48...the number 6 & 8 are factors, while the 48 is a product.

In this game you want to use the blue deck of cards, we call the product cards—the answers to the factors.

If you have played speed with a regular deck of cards before this will be familiar to you if not.

From Wikipedia here are the instructions for Speed..

Each player is dealt five cards to form a hand, and fifteen cards facedown to form a drawing pile. A stack of five cards is then placed facedown on each side between the players, and serves as a replacement pile. Finally, two cards are placed between the replacement piles in the center in two different places, face down you can put color on color..

See the illustration

Players flip the two center cards and proceed to put down cards (each player gets the stack of cards on their left). After a card has been played, another is drawn from the drawing pile to maintain five cards in the hand. In traditional Speed, a player cannot put down a card of the number identical to that already on the pile (a nine cannot be placed on top of a nine), only a card one step higher or lower in value than the card in the center. Players do not take turns, and may play as many cards in a row as possible. It is considered unfair to put down more than one card at a time- (in one motion). First on to run out of cards wins.

This Product Speed is similar in everything, except instead of five cards you will only be looking through 4 cards. Instead of a reserve of 5 you will have a reserve of 4 cards. Instead of laying the cards that have one higher or lower value (if a 6 is showing in regular speed, you can only lay down a five or a seven). Product Speed only lets you lay down a common factor of the current product that is laying face up. So if you have 42 laying face up, what common factor could you lay down? Well, out of the whole deck of product cards, that may be a lot to do for now, so instead the objective is to find the common multiple of the 42 that is under 10, so 2, 3, 6, or 7 could be one of your possible cards you could lay down on top of the 42.

Let’s say you laid the 7 on top of the 42, then the possible cards to lay on it would be 1, or 7. Now pretend you don’t have any cards to play and neither does your partner, then each one of you will flip one card that is laying face down next to the cards facing up. We call it the reserve piles. Then you start to find the common factors again.

Personally, I find we run out of cards too much, so after we play correctly the first few times, I tweak it and allow any factor. So, for 42 I would also let them have the option to lay down a 21, or 14 if they had it. I also make our reserve pile a little larger.

But don’t give up, this game really makes them think about the numbers, and improves their multiplication skills AND the division skills. Mostly, because they have to really think about what they are doing, and that produces the right thinking about math. The game that follows is a great game to--P32 Ring Around the Products…we LOVE that one.

Thank you for your question, if you need further assistance on this game, please call our 888-272-3291 and we can talk you through the game.

Sincerely,
Carissa
RightStart Customer Service

My question is, if you can play cards that equal the product, how do you get rid of the high product cards in your hand? or don't you? or was I supposed to take them out?

Thanks!
Lisa