Math Game Monday: Dice Miner

I love this game for simple addition with young children or for beginning probability with older students.

Many parents remember struggling to learn math. We hope to provide a better experience for our children.

And one of the best ways for children to enjoy learning is through hands-on play.

Dice Miner

Math Concepts: number line, addition to twelve, probability with dice.

Players: any number.

Equipment: two six-sided dice, twelve tokens per player, paper and pencil.

Set-Up

Draw a number line across the length of your paper and mark the numbers 1–12.

Arrange your eleven tokens on these numbers: spread out, piled up on just one number, or however you like. These are the treasures you’ll be mining for.

How to Play

On your turn, dig in your treasure mine by rolling the dice. and adding the two numbers

If you have any tokens on that sum, you hit pay dirt! Take one token off your number.

The first player to remove all eleven tokens wins the game.

Variations

The challenging part of this game is the set-up. Talk to your kids about their strategies. How did they decide where to place their tokens? What other arrangements would they like to try?

Horse Race: Write the numbers 2–12 down the left side of your paper, and draw four boxes in a row next to each number. Each box represents one-fourth of the way around the race track. Place one token (horse) on each number. On your turn, roll the dice and add the two numbers. Move that horse ahead one space. Which horse do you think will win the race?

History

Marilyn Burns calls this the Two Dice Sum Game in her book About Teaching Mathematics. I had forgotten about the game until I read Joshua Greene’s blog post “Dice Mining.”