Five Dice Game
There are so many reasons to play Five Dice!
I love this game because it practises so many basic maths skills. But kids love it too because it’s fun. It’s a brilliant introduction to multiplication which is quite a conceptual leap from addition. Importantly it gets kids using the language of multiplication in a fun and meaningful context.
When kids tell each other their score, for example, “I got five fours!” they are saying something mathematically complex without even realising it. The technical term for what they are doing is unitising - recognising that they have five units of four dots. But the game context turns something quite complex into something which is easy to pick up. The games also provides huge motivation to learn a few multiplication facts! If you don’t know your facts, you have to count the dots!
This games is so mathematically rich. Every game will help children to:
Subitise – when they read dice scores
Unitise - when they say their score: “Three fives!”
Partition - when they writes their scores
Add - when they total their scores using column addition
Skip count – for working out scores without counting dots
Learn multiplication facts – when they play regularly, children learn recurring facts
Understand - children can literally see the meaning of multiplication facts on the dice
How to play
The aim of the game is simple: get more points than your partner!
On the score sheet you will see that players need to collect ones, twos, threes, fours, fives and sixes. There are six rounds in each game and players choose which number to collect each round. Each round players can roll the dice three times. After the first roll players choose which dice dice to keep and which to roll again.
Example
Player 1 rolls all five dice. They look at the scores and decide to collect fours. They keep the two dice showing four and roll the other three dice again.
Roll 1
On their second roll, Player 1 rolls another four. They keep this four and roll the other two dice one more time.
Roll 2
On their third roll, they do not get any more fours. They have had three rolls so their turn is over, and they record the “x fact” as 3 x 4 (three fours) or 4 x 3 (four, three times). Note that on the score card, they show what they rolled by crossing off the right number of dice. In a busy classroom, this means that you can check for understanding. Finally children write their score, partitioning the value into 10s and 1s.
Recording your score
When Player 1’s first turn is over, Player 2 rolls. When each player has had six turns and has a score in each row (it can be zero!) players add up their scores. Highest score wins.
A completed score sheet and a winning score!
If children play this game regularly they become really proficient at using the language of multiplication. It flows naturally off their tongues. More importantly, they can see what the language means.
I cannot recommend this game highly enough! Download the score sheet for free.