Math Dice Jr Game

Roll Into Mastering Math

• What: Math Dice Game
• When: Four years and up
• Why: Build math skills, compact, affordable
• Where: Amazon

If you want to boost your kid’s burgeoning math skills, add a round or two of Math Dice Juniorto your day. Never heard of Math Dice? This game from ThinkFun comes with a fabric track, six dice, and six tokens to mark a place on the scoring track. 

Kids can choose the near or far finish line. Each player takes turns rolling the twelve sided target die. Then they roll the remaining five scoring dice. Using addition or subtraction, they try to add the numbers rolled on the scoring dice to get the target number from the target die. Once they spot a way to reach the target, they yell out “Math Dice!” For instance, if the target die lands on seven, and the other five dice show one, two, three, four, and five, kids could add two and five, and three and four to equal seven. You can combine as many dice as you want to reach the target. Using the same example, someone could add the four, two, and one dice to reach seven as well. Each die can only be used once per roll, so you take away the dice as they get used.

My kids play one point per target number (so three dice score the same as using one or two to reach the target), but the official rules state that you get a point for every die you can claim. The game goes a bit faster if you use the written rules of scoring. For beginners or to even the playing field between kids with different levels of skill, you can let each person rolling solve the equations. Otherwise, kids can yell out and grab whatever dice they need to make the math add up.

Everything fits neatly into the small blue drawstring bag that comes included. It makes a great size and weight for traveling, though not for the car or plane ride itself since the dice can easily roll under seats, unless you have a box or another way to contain them.

The game moves quickly, and my kids usually want to play several rounds at a time. If your kid needs practice counting, recognizing numbers, or adding and subtracting, this dice game can make the process much more fun.