Math Mountain

Goal: to learn about dice, number composition, and probability, and to practice addition.

Materials: two dice, pencil and paper

How to play: along the bottom of a piece of paper write the numbers 2-12, so that each number can form its own column. Roll a pair of dice. Put an ‘X’ above the number the two dice add up to. So, if you roll a 3 and a 4, put an X in the 7 column.

The general idea behind this game is to serve as an easy introduction to probability, though there’s little overt discussion of this when we do this. As we rolled the dice enough times, we started to see a pattern emerge, one that looked like a mountain that towered to the clouds around the 6, 7 and 8, and rolled off into the plains near the 2, 3, 11, and 12. Hmm, we wondered, why does this happen? I briefly explained that there’s only one way to roll a 2 or a 12, but several ways to roll a 7. Penny likely doesn’t fully understand this yet, but she has a basic understanding of what’s happening, and the practice of adding the two dice up is just gravy on top of, well, on top of the mountain.

As she gets older and more comfortable with math, I plan on going much deeper into the math of dice (probablity) and the math of many of the other games we’ve played. Hopefully she’ll be well-prepared given the base she’s getting, and will be able to draw on this knowledge to make connections and reason deeply on her own.