Dice Games

Dice are an excellent learning tool. They are inexpensive; come in a variety of sizes, shapes, colors, and styles; and are extremely versatile. Here are some of our favorite resources and ways to use dice in our learning.

Blank Colored dice (also available in white) are great for creating your own options! We write on them with permanent marker to create personalized dice.

Dice are available in many colors!

Polyhedral (many-sided) dice provide more options for the numbers available!

Foam dice are available in many sizes and are quiet when rolled! They are also great for outside!

Math Practice

Choose two (or more) colors and roll to add, subtract, multiply, etc.
Roll several dice and practice making equations
Use what you rolled to reach a target number
Use non-traditional dice to expand the possible sums and products

Enhance Board Game Play

Enhance board games like Yahtzee by giving each person their own color dice
Swap out standard dice for polyhedral dice to extend the difficulty on existing games

Games Played with Dice

Yahtzee
Farkle
Tenzi: The aim of the game is to roll your dice and try and match the same number. The process is simply repeated until the one player has matched all of their dice. The game is played in rounds, so once a player has successfully rolled all 1s, they try for 2s and so on. The first player to complete all six rounds first, wins!
Beat That! Players come up with the largest number possible combining the dice thrown. For example, if a player used two dice and came up with a 6 and a 7, the highest number that could be achieved is 76. Similarly, if you used three dice and the numbers rolled were 4,6 and 8, then the highest number possible would be 864. Once players have come up with the highest number they think is possible, the dice are then passed to the next player with the invitation of ‘Beat That!’ The player with the highest number at the end of each round is declared the winner. Also try playing with the smallest number.
Mountain: A mountain is shown on a piece of paper with a series of number showing them leading up the mountain, and descending down the other side. In order to climb the mountain, children must roll each number that is shown on the mountain. So if the first number is a 1, then a 1 must be rolled before the climb can start. Each number must be attained in order, so there can be no fast forwarding when it comes to rolling a number that appears later on. The winner is the first person that is able to claim the mountain with a number of a successful dice rolls. They can be tailored for different players. For example, you may want to increase the size of the mountain, or introduce more dice.
Run For It! The aim of the game is to roll dice that have sequence numbers, such as 1-2, or 1-2-3. Each sequenced number is worth 5 points, but a sequence cannot be minus any numbers. For example, if the hand thrown was 1,4,6,6,6,3 then no sequence can be recorded, and as such no score is recorded. The winner of the game is the first person to reach 100 points. Also trying scoring by 2s, 10s, or some other factor; or change the target score.

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