Dice games

I always think, if you have a couple of dice, you’ll never be bored. They’re so handy, you can stick them in your pocket very easily and there’s lots of games you can play with them. Here are some games you can play with your little ones.

Dice games for toddlers

Count and Move

Uses: One Die
Think of an activity: jumping, clapping, touching your toes, throw the die and do that activity the number of times your die. You could scale this up for older children by throwing two dice and adding up the numbers.

Build a Tower

Uses: One Die and building blocks
Using building blocks of your choice, roll the die and challenge your little one to build a tower with that number of blocks. They can then either knock the tower over and start again, or add more blocks on the next throw.

Dice Games for Preschool and Early Years

Roll and Colour

I’ve created some free printable colouring pages for you, which has instructions included. You can use one and two dice for these. You could use these or draw your own picture and add numbers. I find that even if children don’t want to think about numbers, they may be up for colouring games

Tag the number

Uses: One die and spare paper
Write the numbers 1 to 6 on a couple of pieces of paper and blu-tack it to a wall. Get your child to roll the dice then run to the wall and tap the correct number. The further from the numbers you get them to roll the die, the more worn out they’ll get!

Round the Clock

Uses: two dice
This is a game for more than one player. The first player throws both dice. They’re hoping to throw a number 1. They pass the dice to the next player, who does the same. Each player in the game does this. When you return to the first player, if they’ve thrown a 1 already, they try to throw a 2 (they can do this by either throwing 2 ones or a 2 on either die). If they haven’t, they try again to throw a 1. Carry on round each player, who is trying to get the next number in their sequence. The first person to make it to 12 wins.

Dice games for older children

Yahtzee

There’s a reason this is a classic game, it’s brilliant! For this game you’ll need 5 dice and two or more players, as well as a score sheet.
You can find the rules here:
https://www.dicegamedepot.com/yahtzee-rules/
and the score sheets here:
https://www.memory-improvement-tips.com/yahtzee-score-sheets.html

You should be able to find dice in any board games you have at home. However, if you don’t have any, I’ve created a print out so you can make your own