Hello Preschool Families!
We’ve been playing a dice game in the MWF class the last several Mondays that would be great fun at home for all the children - and it would be a great way to learn some important math skills! It is a game I learned at a math workshop that I attended during January’s Early Childhood Conference. The workshop was given by a representative from Box Cars and One Eyed Jacks which is located in Canada.
We start with a tray of 36 dice (which can be purchased from Box Cars - click on the Math Manipulatives link or other places, I’m sure). The tray is great, because it's easy to see if we need to search for missing dice at the end of the game! To play Simple Sixes, someone rolls all of the dice (we roll them into a shallow box to keep them contained). Then, everyone starts looking for dice combinations that add up to 6. So, you could pull out six 1’s, or two 3’s, a four and a two, or a simple six! You can go around the table and take turns or you can use a sand timer like we do and try to find all the sixes before all the sand is on the bottom.
After we learned Simple Sixes, we expanded to sevens, eights and now we’re on Nifty Nines! Usually we will have children at the math table all morning long for these games. Let me give you one other suggestion if you decide to play this at home. When your children are counting the combined dots, have them count the dots on the larger number die first. For example, if you rolled a six and a three, first count the six dots, and then move on to the next die with seven, eight and nine. Scroll down a bit to the previous post to see what the game looks like in our classroom!
Have fun playing and learning!
Miss Jean
