Dice War
Age group
- Early Years (Age 3 to 6)
- Primary (Age 6 to 9)
Curriculum Goal
Kindergarten: Demonstrating Literacy and Mathematics Behaviour
Collect, organize, display, and interpret data to solve problems and to communicate information, and explore the concept of probability in everyday contexts (#19).
Related Links
Context
- 2-4 Students sit together on the carpet or at desks.
- Students should have previous experience with number magnitude.
Materials
10 standard dice per child/player
Lesson
The objective of the game is for one player to win all dice in play.
- To begin, provide each player with 10 dice.
- Each player selects one die to roll. Players simultaneously roll their selected die.
- The player with the highest roll takes all played dice and adds them to their dice pile.
- When two players have rolled their die and have the same highest number, a war is launched. The two players engaging in the war, roll their dice again and the player with the highest number wins all the dice in play.
- The game ends when one player has all the dice.
Look Fors
- Do the children know the magnitude of their numbers on the cards?
- Can children read symbolic numbers?
- What strategies do the children implement to determine the number’s magnitude?
- Can children easily determine which number is larger?
Extension
- Player with the smaller number wins each round.
- Addition War, Subtraction War, Multiplication War, etc. Players roll two dice each round.
- Players with the largest sum (or difference, or product) takes all.
