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).

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.
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