Today’s  activities provide opportunities to practice core math facts and skills in the context of games. Think of them as ‘thoughtful practice’.  Sums of Ten and The Itsy Bitsy Spider are games that promote numerical fluency in an engaging way and can be played again and again.

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THE ITSY BITSY SPIDER

A DICE GAME FOR TWO

The Itsy Bitsy Spider climbed up the water spout.
Down came the rain
And washed the spider out.
Out came the sun,
And dried up all the rain;
And the Itsy Bitsy Spider climbed up the spout again.

HOW TO PLAY

Materials:  dice, one marker for the spider and the drainpipe gameboard.

Rules:
One player is the Sunshine.
One player is the Rain.
The Spider marker is placed in the middle of the drain pipe.
Throw the dice to see how far the spider goes.

The sunshine makes the spider go up the drain pipe.
The rain makes the spider go down.

If the spider gets to the top, Sunshine wins.
If the spider goes down to the bottom, the rain wins.

Itsy Bitsy Spider Gameboard pdf

Think of this game board as an introduction to number lines 🙂

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SUMS OF TEN

You can play this alone or with others.

Materials – 10 dice

1.  Roll all 10 dice and set aside all the sets of dice that add up to 10.

2.  Roll the remaining dice until all the dice are grouped.

Two ways to play:

~The winner can be the person who only has one dice remaining the person who groups all of their dice first.

~This second way might involve breaking up groups of 10 you have already made to make new ones.

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Some additional ways to play:

• Group dice into sets that add up to 15

• Group dice into sets that add up to 20