Games and puzzles are a great way of practicing math skills while having fun. Playing games and doing puzzles support computational fluency, strategy development, and making connections between mathematical concepts.
Dice Games
There are many fun games you can play with a six-sided dice that support math fluency.
Find-a-Match
Goal: Roll two dice with the same value in less than 5 rolls.
How to Play: Using one die with dots and another with numbers, roll both die at the same time. If the value of the die match, you win! If they do not, you can choose to re-roll one or both dice. Can you get the die to match in fewer than 5 rolls?
Alternative Variations:
(A) You can use one die and six cards valued A-6, roll a die and flip a card, do they match?
(B) Try using a dodecahedron dice (1-12), how do your chances of rolling the same number change?
Close to 100
Goal: To achieve a sum of paired dice closest to 100 without going over.
How to Play:
- Roll 2 dice.
- Create the largest two-digit number you can with the two dice. Record the number.
- Roll the dice again, create a two digit number, where when you add it to the first number it will get you closest to 100
- You can take a chance by taking a 3rd roll…. Would it push your sum to greater than 100?
Make ____ ?
Goal: Use mathematical operations to “make” the goal number as many times as possible.
How to Play: Roll 3 or more dice (the more dice the better!)
How many different ways can you use the numbers to make the number 10? Make 7 ? Make 12? (or any number of choice)
What is the smallest number of dice you can use to make the number ___ ?
What is the greatest number of dice you can use to make the number___?
Think about order of operations. Not all the rolled dice need to be used to “make” the number.
Example: “Make 7”, the player rolls a 5-2-1.
They can make a 7 by:
5 + 2 x 1
5 x 1 + 2
5 x 2
…and so on
Making 0
Goal: Achieve a score of zero or as close to zero as possible after 12 rounds.
How to Play:
Each team receives 4 dice, two dice should be the same color and identified as negative and positive dice (i.e. 2 Red dice are negative and 2 white dice are positive)
Roll all your dice at once.
Using the numbers on the dice create a number sentence that equals zero or that is close to zero.(i.e. + 3 - 5 + 4 - 1 = 1)
Record your number sentence and its answer
Each roll and number sentence is recorded as one round.
You will play 12 rounds in total.
At the end of the 12th round, you will need to add all of your answers together.
The team that is closest to zero wins.