Fun with Math Games - Place Value Yahtzee!

Anyone visiting our room during math time will witness several different activities. We normally start off with a story, or a quick mini lesson/discussion on the rug. Then we work silently in our math books for about 20 minutes, or until I see wisps of smoke coming from the children's ears. That tells me that they may be ready for some activity. Often we then work on a longer math project, or we play a game that reinforces some concepts we are working on. Since the beginning of the year, our broad mathematical theme has been number sense and place value.

This week, we are learning a new game in my math group - and so far, it has been very fun! It is based on the "Yahtzee" game, but with a place value twist. Children take turns rolling dice and then building numbers, while trying to fill in all of the categories on their game card. Once all spaces are filled in, the player with the highest number in each category gets a point. We are started with three digit numbers (thus the three dice) and have since worked up to 4 digit numbers. Next week, we will try our hand with 6 digit numbers.

This is a fun way to reinforce lots of place value skills - building highest (or lowest) numbers given a set of digits, reading large numbers, knowing the value of each place, and so on.