Activity
Rolling Dice
Ready for a game that's mostly about strategy with a little luck thrown in for good measure? This dice game is a great way for your child to practice all of the basic math facts and get strategic about deciding when he wants to take a risk, and when he wants to play it safe. Make math fact practice exciting and start rolling the dice!
What You Need:
- 2 dice
- 2–4 players
- White lined paper or ¼ inch graph paper (one sheet per player)
- Pencil
What You Do:
- Have each player rolls a die and explain that the player who rolls the highest number gets to go first.
- Now the first player should roll both dice and multiply the two numbers rolled to find their product.
- Have your child write the product down on the paper. For example, if Player One rolls a 3 and a 5 he should multiply 3 by 5 and write 15 down on his piece of paper.
- Player One has a choice; he can decide to roll both dice again or choose to pass them to the next player. Why wouldn't a player want to roll again? Well...this game has a few catches:
If a player rolls a one or a three on his second turn, he must find the product of the two numbers he rolled and then subtract the product from his total.
If a player rolls a one and a three on his second turn, he must divide his total in half and subtract half of the points he's earned so far. If he rolls a one and a three on his second turn he loses all the points earned so far in the game and must return to zero. The dice then get passed to the next player.
- If he chooses to roll again, have him multiply the two numbers and add, subtract or divide to detemine his new total.
- Now it's the second player's turn. She can decide to roll the dice either once or twice and perform the necessary calculations to find her total.
- Players continue to take turns and perform calculations.
- The first player to reach 300 points is the winner.