Fun Dice Games for Kids

Playing games with young children can sometimes be a challenge. Chutes and Ladders gets old about halfway through the first game and 2-3 games later you are thinking of Chutes and Ladders variants trying to make the game interesting. In this post I want to share some of the dice games we play with our 3 year old.

These games will obviously be very simple and many of them will be purely luck driven to allow children to not only understand but be able to compete on equal grounds.

??Guess the Dice??

This game is a new house favorite, a dice rolling game that helps children with numbers, helps with focus and helps them with remembering.

Setup
Each player gets an equal number of the same dice. The child involved in the game should be familiar with all the numbers on the dice. For really young children a few D4 and work up to D20 as they get older.


How to play

1. Use a D6 to figure out who is going to go first.
2. Each player rolls their dice and use their hand to block the dice so no one else can see it.
3. Starting with the first player and going clockwise around the table each player gets to choose another person at the table and guess a number. If the person has any dice with that number on it they must remove all the dice of that number from behind their hand to the center. 
4. The last person with dice behind their hand wins.

Variants
Some optional changes that can help accommodate for kids as they get older/smarter.

• If you guess correct you get the dice and the player with the most dice at the end wins. 
• If you guess the dice correct you get the dice and re-roll it. The person that ends with all the dice wins.
• Each player can choose to take a die from the center instead of guessing on their turn. They can only keep the dice if they roll the upper 50% value on the die (ie 3-6 on a D6 or 4-8 on a D8). If they succeed they then re-roll it and hide it behind their hand.

~Lucky Rolls~

This is a pure random luck dice rolling game with little to no value to it. The simplicity allows for even very young children to play and feel included on game night.

Setup

Get dice equal to the number of players plus 1 with the same "D" value. For example if you are playing with 3 players you would get 4 D6 or 4 D20.

How to play

1. Each player roll their die and set it out in front of them.
2. The player with the highest value goes first followed be each player in ascending order.
3. You then take turns rolling the extra die, if the extra die roll matches anyone's die value in front of them they are out of that round. 
4. First to win 3 rounds wins the game

Variants

•  Instead of getting removed from the game the person must increase the value on the die in front of them by 1 and they are removed once they can no longer go to a higher value on the die. For example if they get to 6 on a D6 and then they must increase to 7 they are out of the game.

!!!Dice Battle!!!

This game is a competitive feeling luck based dice rolling game. This allows for some decision making to feel more interactive.

Setup

Each player gets 1 of each die type . ( D4, D6, D8, D10, D12, D20 )

How to play

1. Randomly choose who is the first player
2. The first player can then choose another player at the table that still has dice.
3. Both players secretly choose one of their dice. 
4. The player that rolls the higher value wins that battle. If there is a tie no one wins. Use some sort of tokens to show the winner.
5. Each player then discards the dice they just used then move to the next players turn.
6. Play continues till no more actions can be performed because of the number of dice available.
7. The player with the most victories is the winner

Variants

• The winner gets to keep the dice they used.
• Allow multiple dice to be used to work on addition skills.

I hope these games work as well for your family as they have ours.




As a side note I did want to mention a game that that I find is particularly great for young children called feed the kitty. I find this game to be exceptional for young children and still fun for adults.