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Games are an important part of math class, in my opinion. Not only are kids able to practice the skills that we have been focusing on (over and over repeatedly), but they are also doing it in a format that they find fun...and anything that adds fun to learning is a plus in my book!

So, when I plan my math lessons, I am always on the lookout for hands-on fun activities that will add variety and motivation to our math time. For that reason, these dice games are some of my go-to games.

Here they are, listed by category:

1. Build it Big or Build it Small

Kids each need a dice and some scratch paper or a whiteboard. Tell the kids whether they are trying to make a larger or a smaller number. I usually start big but after 5 minutes, switch it to small for variety. Kids make dashes on their paper/whiteboard to indicate the place value of the number.

So, if you're working on hundreds, kids would make 3 dashes, 4 for thousands, and so on. Kids take turns rolling dice the same number of times as the dashes. Each time a person rolls, he/she must think logically to place the number shown on the dice, on the dashes.

For example, if you are working on a large number and roll a six, it would go on the largest place value space but if you were working on making a small number, it would go on the smallest place value space. Once kids have placed a number, it can not be moved. The person with the highest (or lowest, depending upon the game's goal) wins a point.

Variation 1: Make this a decimal place value game by having the kids draw a decimal before the dashes.

Variation 2: My favorite way to play math games with playing cards or with dice is to give each set of partners a "more/less" coin that I make ahead of time. This is a simple plastic or foam circle and I attach a sticker (or you could use sharpie) on one side with the word "more" and the other side with the word "less". That way at the end of the game, no one knows who has won until you flip the more/less coin.

If more is shown, the higher number wins and if less is shown, the smaller number wins. I like this because it adds suspense to the game and because no one feels the need to poop out/give up before the game is over, if it becomes obvious that there is no chance for winning.

2. Roll and Round That Number

For this game, kids need scratch paper or a whiteboard, as well as a set of dice. The number of dice used should match whatever place value you are working on. So if you're focusing on hundreds, partners need three, or for ten thousands, partners need five.

The first person rolls all three dice at the same time and builds a number with it. The second person does the same and then each person rounds his/her number to the highest place value. For example, a roll of 5, 3, 7 could make the number 753, which would be rounded to 800. Students compare rounded numbers and the highest correctly rounded number wins (or use the more/less coin to decide).

Variation 1: Give the kids a certain number of dice and tell them how to round them. Change that every few minutes. For example, if partners have 5 dice, tell them to round it to the nearest ten. After five minutes, tell them on their next game to round it to the nearest hundred...

Variation 2: This can also be a decimal rounding game.

Variation 3: For older kids, you could use this with positive/negative numbers. Make a coin like the more/less coin with a positive or negative sign on it to flip and then round and compare numbers.

3. Order of Operations

Kids definitely need scratch paper or whiteboards for this game. Partners should have 3 or more dice, depending upon the type of math sentence template you give them. You'll need to give kids a specific template that will work, as not all templates will work for this game using the numbers on the dice (see a few examples below).

Have the kids make a template on their paper/whiteboards. Kids roll the dice and place the numbers on the template provided. Kids solve that problem, using the order of operations and then compare their number to see who has the largest (and correctly done) number to determine a winner.

A few possible templates for this game:

______ _______ + (_____ - ______) = Example with 4 dice: 25 + (6 - 4) = 23

(_____ x ______) + _______ = Example with 3 dice: (3 x 4) + 2 = 14

______ _______ - (______ + ______) = Example with 4 dice: 26 - (5 + 3) = 18

4. Fraction War

Have kids use scratch paper or whiteboards. Partners each roll two dice to make a fraction. The smaller of the roll should go on top/be the numerator. If the person rolls doubles (same number twice, like two fives), that person automatically wins a point for that round. Once dice are rolled, partners work together to see which fraction is larger. The larger fraction wins.

Variation 1: Once dice are rolled, the person who determines the largest fraction correctly the fastest, wins the point.

Variation 2: Use the more/less coin to determine the winner, once fractions are compared.

Variation 3: Add or multiply the fractions and the person who correctly determines the sum/product first wins.

5. Simplify Fractions

Using scratch paper or whiteboards and three dice, partners each roll the dice to create a fraction. One of the numbers is placed on top (unless it is a one, which means the fraction can't be simplified) and the other two numbers are left side by side to create the denominator.

For example, if the roll is 4, 3, 6...The fraction might be 4/36, which simplifies to 1/9 or it could be 6/34, which simplifies to 3/17. If the roll does not allow for simplifying, the person automatically loses. The person who has the largest fraction wins.

Variation 1: Use the more/less coin to determine a winner

Variation 2: Kids who can come up with the most ways to make fractions to simplify would win. This would be a higher level thinking kind of activity.

6. Improper Fraction Challenge

For this game, scratch paper or whiteboard will be needed, as well as three dice per partners or small groups. Each person rolls the 3 dice and makes an improper fraction by placing two of the dice side by side as the numerator and the other dice as the denominator, and then simplifies to make a whole number or a mixed number.

For example, if the child rolled 2, 4, 5...Some possible fractions would be 24/5 = 4 4/5... or 54/2 = 27... or 45/2 = 22 1/2. The higher level thinking comes in as kids are trying to make the largest number possible.

Variation 1: Kids use the same numbers to convert into a whole number/mixed number.

Variation 2: Older kids may use 5 dice (3 for numerators and 2 for denominators).

Variation 3: Use the more/less coin to determine a winner.

7. Line Plots

Here's a hands-on way for kids to get lots of practice making line plots. For this game, kids need scratch paper or a whiteboard and 2 - 5 dice per small group. Each child makes a template of a line plot before starting the game. Kids need a line and numbers one to six like this:

________________________________________________________________________________

1 2 3 4 5 6

Each person rolls a total of 10 times. Each child creates a line plot using the numbers shown on the dice. So, for example, if a child rolled 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6...the line plot would look like this:

X

X X X

X X X X X X

1 2 3 4 5 6

Once each person has a line plot made, one person rolls the dice. The number shown determines who wins. For example, if a 3 was rolled, the person in the example above has three in the 3 section.

That would be compared to the partner's section 3 and the person with more in that particular section wins. If it is the same, the dice is rolled again until a winner is determined.

8. Area and Perimeter

For this game, students need two dice and a piece of grid paper for partners to share. Each student also needs a marker or a crayon/colored pencil. Partners should have different colors, so if one has red, the other might be blue.

Each person rolls the dice and uses the numbers as the length and width of a rectangle. The person draws the rectangle on the grid paper to scale. So if 4 and 6 were rolled, the person would draw a rectangle that is 4 squares wide by 6 squares long.

In the rectangle, that person writes the perimeter or the area (whichever the teacher indicates at the beginning of the game). The other person takes a turn and the winner is the player who has captured the most area on the grid paper, when time is called.

Variation 1: Use two separate pieces of grid paper. Once students determine area (or perimeter) keep a running total of points. For example if the area was ten and the second area was 6, the running total would be 16. Highest score at the end wins.

Variation 2: If studying colonization, each player may choose a country and imagine that the grid paper is land in the New World. Spain, England, France, the Netherlands and other countries would work well in this scenario.

Hope this has given you a few ideas for dice games. If you're looking for more engaging resources, I also have some awesome task cards for 3rd grade, 4th grade, and 5th grades, that are great for centers, one on one or for a whole class game of scoot:

Finally, if you would like some free math games using playing cards, I wrote a post on Upper Elementary Snapshots that you might want to check out.

Click here to read Math Games Using Playing Cards.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

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common core standards english language arts

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Games are an important part of math class, in my opinion. Not only are kids able to practice the skills that we have been focusing on (over and over repeatedly), but they are also doing it in a format that they find fun...and anything that adds fun to learning is a plus in my book!

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Share your videos with friends, family, and the world

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Aim: Learners estimate the cost of products. The teacher sets up shop and give items prices (e.g. carrots for 1 CHF/kilogram). Each learner writes a word problem "I go to the market and buy 3 kgs of carrots, 2 kg of potatoes at 2 CHF a kilo...." and has an answer (done the day before). They memorize their role plays for homework. Then, the next day, half the class are shop keepers and the other half are shoppers. They take turns doing mental math and trying to guesstimate the correct total cost!

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The following performance assessments are strong examples of teacher-developed performance assessments from schools within the Center for Collaborative Education's Quality Performance Assessment network. These performance tasks demonstrate the pedagogical decisions teachers made, as well as the ways the experience allowed for deeper learning. While these summaries do not address the full curriculum, expectations, or teaching context in which the tasks are embedded, they do offer a consistent format to explore task details and learn more about work resulting from teacher-created, student-centered design.

DEPTH OF KNOWLEDGE LEVELS

These performance assessment examples refer to Depth of Knowledge Levels from Quality Performance Assessment, which are:

Depth of Knowledge 1: Recall; memorization; simple understanding of a word or phrase.

Depth of Knowledge 2: Covers level 1 plus: paraphrase; summarize; interpret; infer; classify; organize; compare; and determine fact from fiction. There is a correct answer, but may involve multiple concepts.

Depth of Knowledge 3: Students must support their thinking by citing references from text or other sources. Students are asked to go beyond the text to analyze, generalize, or connect ideas. Requires deeper knowledge. Items may require abstract reasoning, inferences between and across readings, application of prior knowledge, or text support for an analytical judgment about a text.

Depth of Knowledge 4: Requires higher-order thinking, including complex reasoning, planning, and developing of concepts. Usually applies to an extended task or project. Examples: evaluates several works by the same author; critiques an issue across time periods or researches topic/issue from different perspectives; longer investigations or research projects.

See www.qualityperformanceassessment.org for additional information.

Performance Assessment Example 1

Background

Your Community Project: Understanding and Describing a Community

School: Plymouth Elementary School, Plymouth, NH

Grade level: 1

Content area: Social Studies, ELA

Teacher Authors: Sarah Carlson, Kristen Kilduff, and Karen McLoud
Plymouth Elementary School, part of SAU 48 in New Hampshire, entered performance assessment work by focusing on assessment literacy. Over three years, the school's professional development plan focused on building the full staff's capacity to design, validate, and implement performance assessments. As part of their collaborative practice, Plymouth teachers engage in monthly validation sessions that are facilitated by a volunteer group of teachers. Incorporating feedback is a key focus as the faculty members build their assessment literacy. Plymouth Elementary School is also a Tier 2 (building capacity) member of New Hampshire's Performance Assessment for Competency Education (PACE), a statewide initiative in which member districts and schools are exempt from most state standardized testing and use teacher-generated local and common performance assessments in its place to assess student learning. Beginning in the 2017-2018 school year, the school will become a Tier 1 PACE school; the PACE performance assessment system becomes their state accountability model.
The Task

The Your Community task is designed to help students see the diversity of people, places, and things that are included in communities. After completing a unit on the community, students draw a picture of a community, real or imagined. They are asked to include and label people, buildings, animals, and nature. Once the maps are completed, students present their maps to the class, explaining how people use the different spaces in their communities, what makes their community inviting or uninviting to live in, and what people do in their community.

Topic: What is a community?

Genre: Social Studies and ELA

Depth of Knowledge: 3 - requires students to synthesize information from multiple texts and develop a complex model

Habits/Skills/Dispositions

Communication

Creativity

Self-Direction

Voice and Choice: Students create their own communities

Audience: Classmates and teacher

Time Frame: Three weeks, including current reading unit, the drawing process, and the presentation process

Teacher observation on the Your Community performance task

"The prior unit fell around Thanksgiving and Christmas time, so we had been focusing on community in general. Starting in October, we learned about community helpers. For Thanksgiving, we participated in creating centerpieces for lunches. We were active in our community, not just learning about community. I had told the students we would be creating our own communities later in the unit, but halfway through the community unit, they were already asking to create their own. When I introduced the task, they cheered!"

Performance Assessment Example 2

Background

Building Bold Bills: Integrating Civics into Persuasive Writing

Daniel J. Bakie Elementary School, Kingston, NH

Grade level: 4

Content area: ELA and Social Studies

Nels Tooker, Kathleen McLaughlin, and Jillian Zeeben
Bakie Elementary School is part of the Sanborn School District in New Hampshire. Sanborn is a vanguard district in New Hampshire in terms of competency-based education (competency-based education sets broad learning targets of what students should know and be able to do; students progress as they demonstrate proficiency over them), and was one of the initial districts in the founding cohort of NH PACE schools. Since 2012, Sanborn has been hosting a summer symposium on competency-based learning, inviting schools from all over the state and beyond to attend. Because their approach to competency-based learning is vertically aligned from kindergarten through 12th grade, the Sanborn School District frequently hosts site visits for schools exploring the shift towards competency-based learning.
The Task

With this task, three teachers aim to integrate civics standards into their fourth grade lesson about government through a persuasive writing task. Pairs of students are asked to research an issue that is important to them. Based on the research, they individually write persuasive essays proposing a state bill. In their essays, they must consider arguments and counter-arguments. Finally, the students go back to their pairs to draft a final proposal, combining their ideas. These proposals are brought to a mock New Hampshire Senate session where the students proposing the bill act as co-sponsors and their peers as Senators. In this formal mock Senate session, the co-sponsors stand up and present their bill. If the bill is passed after a Senate vote, it goes on to the governor for veto or signing into law. This task introduces students to the law-making process, the balance of power in government, and the process of decision-making about civic issues that are important to them.

Topic: The United States' law-making process

Genre: Persuasive writing - the goal of students' essays is to convince their peers to accept their proposal

Depth of Knowledge: 3 - requires synthesis of multiple sources and evidence to support arguments

Habits/Skills/Dispositions

Communication

Collaboration

Creativity

Technology use

Voice and Choice: Students select their topic

Audience: Classmates in a mock Senate

Time Frame: 7 days (45- to 60-minute sessions each day)

Teachers' observations on the Building Bold Bills performance task

"Collaboration, communication, and creativity are important skills that students employ in this task. . . . Students come up with amazing things. One of the groups that we had this year wanted to limit tattoos. They researched the topic and called the bill "Think Before You Ink," which I think is really catchy. The persuasive writing that they did was top-notch for what they were capable of, because they cared about the issues they chose and this choice is really important for engagement with the task."

"This task elicited our students' best work because we worked on creating a task that is both a lot of fun and grounded in a real situation. Hopefully the leaders in our classrooms become the leaders in our country and in our states, and will use the skills they learned in my fourth-grade classroom to make the world a better place!"

Performance Assessment Example 3

Background

Designing Lincoln's Playground: Combining Mathematical, Writing, and Social Skills

Abraham Lincoln School, Revere, MA

Grade level: 4

Content area: Math/ELA/Art

Lani Pini-Cabral, Rebecca Cohen, Marisa LeManquis
Abraham Lincoln School is one of three Revere schools in the first cohort of Massachusetts Consortium for Innovative Education Assessment (MCIEA) schools, a partnership of Massachusetts public school districts and their local teacher unions to create fair and effective accountability systems through holistic measures for school quality and performance assessment development. During the second half of the 2016-2017 school year, a team of teachers attended four MCIEA Quality Performance Assessment Institute days in order to develop assessment literacy and experience the design-align-analyze cycle through creating an original task. The Lincoln team created and piloted four performance assessments in fourth grade math, second grade ELA, third grade science, and fifth grade social studies as a means of introducing the school to performance assessment. Performance assessment design is a key focus for the school's Professional Learning Groups as the school builds out their assessment system. Also, assessment of and for student learning is one of three core foci for the Revere Public Schools' 2016-2021 Improvement Plan.
The Task

With the Designing Lincoln's Playground task, three teachers integrate mathematical skills into a performance assessment that involves social skills and persuasive writing. Students create a blueprint of the playground for the Lincoln School, including various structures they would like to see in their park. They measure the recess yard in meters and create a 2D version with a partner in math class, measuring the area and perimeter in square meters and meters. Using their math skills, they draw a detailed square/rectangle of each playground structure on a poster. Each of these squares/rectangles symbolizes the play structure's scale in real life. Then the students write a persuasive essay in ELA to convince an audience that their playground is the best design for the school. Students present their designs to the Lincoln School families and community. Selected designs are built as a 3D model collaboratively, to scale, in art classes.

Topic: Application of area and perimeter

Genre: Mathematical Skills/Persuasive writing

Depth of Knowledge: 3 - requires synthesis of multiple sources and evidence to support arguments

Habits/Skills/Dispositions

Communication

Collaboration

Creativity

Voice and Choice: Students design their own playgrounds

Audience: Classmates, Family, Community

Time Frame: 9+ days (additional time for building the winning design)

Teacher observation on the Designing Lincoln's Playground performance task:

"One visiting teacher from Boston noted that I could also take this assessment and connect it to our science curriculum. She suggested that I have students think about the playground structure and materials if the playground were moved to a desert area or an area where it rained often. She suggested pushing students to think of the effects of erosion. I loved this idea! This connection had never crossed my mind. Within minutes, I had a valuable suggestion on how to strengthen this assessment in the future."

Performance Assessment Example 4

Background

Senior Capstone

Regional School Unit 2, Maine

Grade level: 12

Content area: All

All teachers

Regional School Unit 2 (RSU 2) serves the towns of Dresden, Farmingdale, Hallowell, Monmouth, and Richmond, and the Senior Capstone is the culmination of its proficiency-based, learner-led system. The Senior Capstone for Maine RSU 2 was developed at Hall-Dale High School (one of three high schools in the district) as part of the school's early exploration of personalized and agency-building practices. The entire faculty participates as mentors. "Senior Capstone" is a course that seniors take, so that the time and coaching they need is available to them. The creation of the course - and the first two years of the program - was the work of teacher Linda Aronson, who later went on to write about the experience and philosophy of Senior Capstone in her book, Unleashed to Learn.

The Task

The Senior Capstone at RSU2 is designed to support the senior student in pursuing a fascination and demonstrating it to faculty, students, and community. Students choose a topic (e.g., tiki carving, boat building, business creation). They research that topic in depth, write a research paper, deliver a 20-minute public talk/exhibition that is open to the public, and "enact" their topic in an authentic way (e.g., they carve a tiki, build a boat, start a business). Students begin in December and present throughout the end of their senior year. Every student has two mentors: a faculty member in the school and a community member who can coach the student in their area of expertise.

As can be seen in this video featuring the Senior Capstone at Hall-Dale High School in Regional School Unit 2 in Maine, the energy and import attached to the annual celebration is powerful. Students learn in the eighth grade what will be expected of them in the 12th, and they prepare and are coached through their high school career.

Topic: How do I learn?

Genre: Multiple

Depth of Knowledge: All are touched on in the process, but the structure of the capstone easily lends itself to Depth of Knowledge 4, advanced application and transfer

Habits/Skills/Dispositions

Communication

Creativity

Self-Direction

Collaboration

Voice and Choice: Students have choice at nearly every step of the way

Audience: Faculty, students, community

Time Frame: Three to five months: capstone starts in December and students present from March to May

District superintendent observation on the Senior Capstone performance task

"In the learner-centered model, we want kids to apply the content to a subject matter that is meaningful to them every single day, not just in their senior year. Initially, the kids struggle with it. 'What do I want to do? What do I want to tackle? What goals do I have for myself?' So they struggle through the planning process, much like we, as adults, struggle when we start something new. When it comes to the point in the year when they're presenting their culminating project, it's amazing to see the pride and the confidence that they exude when they're making their presentations."

Student observation on the Senior Capstone performance task

"For my Capstone project, I did animal adoption. For my fieldwork, I organized a dog speed-dating event for the Kennebec Valley Humane Society. I realized how much I needed to be self-reliant. It was really up to me to make my own deadlines, to be assertive in finding my expert mentor, to get what I wanted done, and getting the results I wanted. And I learned I really enjoyed organizing events. So that was fun."

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Performance Assessment Examples from the Quality Performance Assessment Network

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The following performance assessments are strong examples of teacher-developed performance assessments from schools within the Center for Collaborative Education's Quality Performance Assessment network. These performance tasks demonstrate the pedagogical decisions teachers made, as well as the ways the experience allowed for deeper learning.

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The Boy Who Loved Math… The Improbable Life of Paul Erdos READ ALOUD!

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there are a lot of different games you can play with clapping/counting/practicing numbers... :)

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For this activity, you'll need to work with a partner, so the first thing to do is find a friend!
Together count from $1$ up to $20$, clapping on each number, but clapping more loudly and speaking loudly on the numbers in the two times table, and quietly on the other numbers.
Now clap the five times table together up to about $30$, so this time you are clapping more loudly and speaking loudly on the multiples of five and quietly on the others.

If one of you claps the twos in this way and one of you claps the fives, at the same time, can you predict what you would hear?
Which numbers would be quiet?
Which numbers would be fairly loud and which would be very loud?

Now try it - what did you hear?
Were you right?

Choose another pair of tables and repeat what you have just done.
How about the twos and tens?
Why not try the fives and tens?
Each time predict what you will hear before you clap - which numbers will be loud, which fairly loud and which quiet?

If you've enjoyed this activity and would like more of a challenge, try Music to my Ears .

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For this activity, you'll need to work with a partner, so the first thing to do is find a friend! Together count from $1$ up to $20$, clapping on each number, but clapping more loudly and speaking loudly on the numbers in the two times table, and quietly on the other numbers.

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A fun board game for esl students! (probably would use this for kids in the "Mittelstufe")

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10 fun maths games to play with uno cards

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10 fun maths games to play with uno cards

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A fun way to learn math with younger kids.
https://picklebums.com/10-maths-games-can-play-uno-cards/

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by alyssha@teachingandtapas.com

This math game is exactly what the teacher wants:

The purpose of the game is to help your students learn their math facts fluently. I always start my 2nd graders out memorizing their doubles (sums to 20) with this game and then it morphs easily into doubles plus one facts, and then onto the real toughies (7+9, 8+6, etc.).

1. Use masking tape to make a 3×4 box with the sums of problems you want them to memorize. This picture above shows the students working on their doubles facts.

2. Make a set of flashcards with the problems you want them to practice.

3. All students should sit in a line around the box (not shown here because of privacy issues).

4. Choose two students to be "it". They stand on the number 0.

5. Call out a math fact. The students hop to the correct answer.

6. The first student to hop to the fact with their feet completely within in the lines stays in. The other student sits back down in exactly their same place. Keep it light-hearted and take away the competitive nature. To do this, I emphasize how much luck plays into it (i.e. "ooh, you had good luck being right by the six").

6. Then the next student in line is in against the last round's winner. Luck really does take a big part of this and you will see that one student will rarely last more than three rounds before someone else bumps them out.

7. We play this as a group for a few days. After that, I leave the cards and box out and let the students play if they ever have a free moment in class. After a while, I change the numbers to more challenging problems. I have had my "game board" set up since September and they STILL are going crazy to play!

This game can be set up and implemented ANY time of year! Have fun!

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(FREE) Game for Mastering Math Facts! | Teaching and Tapas

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This math game is exactly what the teacher wants: 1. Fun 2. Effective 3. Easy 4. Free The purpose of the game is to help your students learn their math facts fluently. I always start my 2nd graders out memorizing their doubles (sums to 20) with this game and then it morphs easily into doubles plus one facts, and then onto the real toughies (7+9, 8+6, etc.).

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I think this is appropriate for 3rd grade students. The reader speaks very slow and the story has short and repetitive sentences.

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To learn the shapes (squares, circles, rectangle, triangles) you can collect items of these shapes and put them on the floor. Then the students get fly swatters (you can decide if everyone gets one or if you switch and only three or four students get one at a time). You say a shape (e.g. square!) and the students have to hit their fly swatter on an object with the right shape.