Easy Independent Dice Game for Addition or Multiplication


Now that we've started "teaming" at school, my math class is starting to roll! Seriously, we are rolling dice like crazy! AND. THEY. ♥LOVE. IT!
My math block looks like this:
15 mins: Mini-lesson of the day then 3 rotations 15 mins. each,
Teacher: Small group lesson, 6 students
Group Work: children are working on the mini-lesson of the day, 6 students
Game/Center: children are working on basic skills with a hands-on game or activity, 6 children

So this week we started with a simple dice game:
Children work in pairs with three dice.
They each have a turn rolling the three dice,
then writing down the simple addition problem { 6+5+1=}
The winner is the child who has the highest score for those two problems.
They make a tally chart {which is part of this week's graphing skills}
and the winner of the game is whoever gets to 12 points first.
Easy, high-interest and just enough to keep them engaged for the 15 minutes.

I did start Monday with one of Ron Clark's Essential 55: When you win, do not brag; when you lose, do not show anger. We practiced a few rounds of "Good Game!" "Way to go!" "That was fun!" and it really paid off! So far, so good, no ugly words in our room and I was able to really get to know my new boys and girls uninterrupted while working with them in small groups.

But today was the very, best part! Our 1/2 day/early dismissal day is now 1 hour longer & our school was having a small problem with the Pizza Fundraiser, so I passed out paper and told them they could draw. {I rarely let them do this, I only save it for EMERGENCIES, which today was!!!} they started asking for the dice! :) Then some of them asked if they could MULTIPLY the numbers instead of add! We had tears over no pizza, we had tears over panicking about how they get home, we had tears about going to a math workshop {opppps, that would be me!} but we also had math! Overall, it was a great day!

3 comments

  1. Sounds like you hada a great day! I love stations. Sometimes kids are their own best teacher!

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  2. So true! We had a math workshop yesterday and one thing she said that really stuck with me was, "Kids need to discuss vocabulary with each other because the can get the definition across to each other better and with a greater variety of other meanings than we can!"
    ~Fern

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  3. This is such a great way of teaching kids!

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