School holidays are coming up, and for those of you that would like maths learning to continue at home there are lots of exciting maths activities you could all have fun doing! 

Why not spend some time looking at the Families section of the New Zealand maths website. This site is full of suggestions for how you can help your child with their maths at home.

Have you got some dice at home? Why not practise maths by playing these games.? The great thing about dice is that you can make up your own games. If you make up a good one, we’d love to hear about it!

Greedy Pig (nzmaths)

This is a fun way to practise addition, and when playing the game the concept of probability can also be discussed.

This game requires each player to roll the dice, each time adding the total on the dice to a running total. Each player rolls until they decide to ‘stick”. The player with the highest total wins.

There is a catch though. If you roll a 1, your score is zero. If you are too greedy, you will lose all your points!

Double or Halve (nrich maths)

This can be played with a six sided dice, but a nine sided dice makes it more challenging. Able mathematicians could even play with two dice.

How to play:

• Decide on a target number. This is the total that both players are trying to make.

• Player 1 throws the dice. S/he can choose whether to double the number shown or halve the number shown.

• Player 2 throws the dice. In the same way, s/he can choose whether to double the number shown or halve the number shown. Player 2 adds his/her number onto Player 1's number to make a running total.

• Play continues like this with each player rolling the dice, halving or doubling the number and adding the result onto the running total.

• The winner is the player who reaches the agreed target exactly.

Here are some questions to think about:

Must each player always take a turn?

Does it matter if you go first or second?

Are there any particularly good numbers to choose as your target?

Going to Boston

A well known and easy to learn dice game which gives children plenty of adding practice

Equipment:3 dice and scoring pad

How to play

Roll the dice and keep the highest. Roll the remaining dice and again set aside the highest. Roll the last die, and add up your total. Write down your score.

Who can win the most rounds?  Or maybe keep a running total and see who scores the most.

Variations:

Use dice with higher numbers. Older children could try multiplying the dice together to get their score.