"Count up" Sharing a simple dice math game.

So, yesterday I was digging around in my room, trying to find pattern blocks, and in the process found them plus lots of cool other things, one of which was a new in package math dice game i'd gotten ages ago- back when we actually had a school room- so in the YEARS category!   I couldn't believe we'd not opened it yet.  here's a link and picture from amazon

math dice

So, super fun! you can see... well Leif IMMEDIATELY gravitated toward that game, and i promised him we'd play tomorrow... not sure what i was thinking... it clearly says ages 8-adult, and since Leif is 5, and advanced 5, but 5 nonetheless, that would be a huge disappointment.  So I thought, we can make this work.  I gleaned some inspiration from Nik and Annabeth's therapy, where they encourage them to "count up" visualize the dice or actually the dominoes but dice is close enough, choose the biggest one, and then count up from the dots on the other... 

So, if you have a 6, 5, 4, you'd arrange them like that.  If you didn't know that 6+5=11  then you'd call the 6  "6" and with your finger go 7, 8, 9, 10, 11.  Then move on to the 4 and go 12, 13, 14, 15.  Voila!  

So, i set aside the 2 really cool many sided dice (much to Leif's chagrin!) and had us take turns rolling dice and counting up.  whoever got the highest number got to choose a pattern block to make a picture.  Each win earned you another pattern block.  You could even take it a step further, and say whoever completes a picture first wins or something, but i was trying to keep it only mildly competitive becuase Annabeth and Leif are still at that stage where losing is really HARD and i wanted to gently hit them with small losses instead of a big one.

I took pictures, but only toward the end, when the toddler entertainment had nearly worn off and Asher was mentally preparing to chuck stuff.. . see?  Look at that feisty little naughty face...  

Anyway, i thought i'd share since its SO simple, all it requires is 3 regular dice and pattern blocks!!   I might consider writing numbers 3-18 on little cardstock squares to save, since I did find myself forgetting what number i'd rolled after 3 other turns...   but not entirely necessary! 

Anyway, enjoy fun math with your littles and mediums! good stuff!