How do you keep the kids amused for the long summerholidays? What do you do when the inevitable rainy day bluesstrike and everyone gets fractious and argumentative? Andhow do you cope when you are forced to play the waiting game… in doctors' surgeries, airports, or even long carjourneys?
Get the dice out! Dice games are the ultimate in quick andeasy entertainment, with the added advantages of beingcheap, portable and educational too! You can start playingdice with children as young as 2 ½, as long as you are surethat they are past the stage of putting things into theirmouths. And you will find that all ages up to grandparentsare happy to join in.
I offer below three particularly quick and easy games, allof which can be played with children from about the age of 4up. All you need are pencil and paper and dice - a maximumof 7, which you can probably find in existing game boxesaround the house.
Beat That!You will need between two to seven dice, depending on theage of the players. Roll the dice and put them in order tomake the highest number possible. If you roll a 4 and a 6,for example, your best answer would be 64. Using three dice,a roll of 3, 5 and 2 should give you 532, and so on. Writedown your answer, pass the dice, and challenge the nextplayer to "Beat That!" Play in rounds and assign a winner toeach round. For a change, try making the smallest numberpossible! This is a great game for reinforcing the conceptof place value.
Run for it!You will need six dice for this game. Roll the dice and lookfor runs (sequences) starting with 1 (so 1, 1-2, 1-2-3 andso on). Each die that is part of a run scores five points.There can be more than one run in each roll. For example,say you rolled the following combination: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5 and5. You would score 5 points for the first 1. You would thenscore 15 points for the sequence of 1, 2 and 3, for a totalof 20 points for that roll. The first player to reach 100points is the winner.
Going to BostonUse three dice. Roll all three and keep the highest. Rollthe remaining dice and again set aside the highest. Roll thelast die, and add up your total. Write down your score. Playa number of rounds and then either total your points to findthe winner, or simply count how many rounds were won by eachplayer.
