Yahtzee! Fun with numbers.



Have you ever played Yahtzee?  I used to play it a lot growing up with my family - especially on holidays, and I loved it!
I decided to give it a go with my girls, and to my delight found that they too love it!
To make it a bit more special, I made an extra set of dice for them, and a scoreboard - so they can play it out in the garden!!
 (if you're interested in how to make your own - click here to go to the tutorial on my other blog)

The dice are about 15 cm square foam blocks I covered.  The scoreboard is painted with chalkboard paint so they can score and rub out for the next game.


As a child I remember playing this game and having fun - nothing more.  But as a parent, playing it with my kids, I see what a great mathematical tool it is.  Number recognition, adding, patterning and multiplication (times tables) all come into play.

For those of you who've never played. Basically you get three goes rolling the 5 dice to get various combinations which will ultimately get you the highest score you can.  For example you may roll 2 sixes on your first throw, keep those and roll the other 3 dice for your second throw - on which say you get another six, then you roll your last 2 dice for the final time and get one more six and a two.  So you'd have 4 sixes and 1 two.  Which would mean you could score this in sixes and get (4x6) 24, or in 4 of a kind and get (4x6=24 +2) 26.

Don't worry if that sounds confusing - My 7 and 5 year old grasped it all pretty quickly once we started playing.  I still help them a bit with some numbers, and check their overall addition at the end, but as it's a game, they're happy to do it themselves!!

Of course the best score you can get is all five dice the same number, which is a YAHTZEE!!!


Brilliant game - great fun and a great number workout for us all!
Have you ever played?




8 comments:

  1. Jill--I love your site! You were right about it being a good match for me & my family. We love games & yahtze is one of my favorites. Thanks for coming over to Day to Day adventures. I will be following you--feel free to come back over. Life is always hysterical for us. ;)

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  2. Love Yahtzee - great idea making an outdoor version!!

    Thanks for stopping by The House on the Corner ~ I'm following back!

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  3. Love Yahtzee, but kids don't. *sigh*

    Thanks for visiting me at A Season for All Things. A hoagie roll (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania term!) is a submarine sandwich roll. You can use a small 6 inch Italian or French bread, also. Sorry for the confusion!

    I'm enjoying reading through your blog. I'm your newest follower!

    Btw, have the floods affected you at all. Australia seems to be having a rough season.

    ~ Ellen

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  4. Following back from Waltz on By Wednesday.

    I love the big dice!

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  5. Loved, loved, LOVED Yahtzee growing up and have absolutely no clue as to why I stopped playing it! And the idea about the foam dice is brilliant and should be adopted by anyone who wants to fit a bit of exercise into their afternoons :)

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  6. This is so cool. Would you like to post it on my Sewing for kids Saturdays linking party?It starts today. I'm following back too.

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  7. Like playing yahtzee,,, we used to play at http://www.freethedice.com/games/games_hall.php Its fun!!!!

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