Do you know how to play beetle? It’s a simple children’s game using a dice, great for practising turn taking, following instructions and fair play, and for number recognition too. Here’s a Christmas version: perfect for cold snowy days when you’re stuck inside or for those days between Christmas and New Year when you need a quick idea to have some fun.
You need just one dice, and a piece of paper and a pencil for each player.
How to play beetle The object of the game is to take turns rolling the dice and get the numbers you need to complete a picture of Father Christmas. Each number of the dice corresponds to a different part of Father Christmas’s face:
1 means you can draw his face
2 means you can draw his hat
3 means you can draw his eyes
4 means you can draw his beard
5 means you can draw his nose
6 means you can draw his mouth
However you have to start off with his face, so each player has to wait until they roll a 1 before they can start drawing their picture.
If you roll a number you’ve already used in your picture, you have to miss a go.
If you’re playing with pre-schoolers you can make it bit easier by pre-drawing and cutting out the pieces of the face they will need. Older children can simply draw their own Father Christmas using their paper and pencil.
The winner is the first person to complete Santa. I’m sure you can think of a good prize!
A variation to make it harder
You can make things a little harder, and play a longer game, if you use a reindeer as your picture.
1 means you can draw a body
2 means you can draw a head
3 means you can draw an antler (so you need to throw 3 twice to get both antlers)
4 means you can draw a leg (se you need to throw 4 four times to get all the legs)
5 means you can draw a tail
6 means you can draw a red nose
You have to have a body to start and you need a head before you can draw antlers or a nose.
Have you got any other Christmas versions of easy games? Please feel free to add a link in the comments.
happily shared with We Play
We’ve done something similar and my boys loved it. Thanks for the reminder!
My niece and nephew love this game, so I think we will be doing this variation at Christmas time. Thanks for that xx
That is a great idea. So simple and easy to do anywhere anytime. I’m going to add a dice to my little going out bag (we already have pencils and paper). Thank you.
can’t find our dice (am suspecting the dogthing), we must really get some again. what i simple and efficient idea to play-draw. :)(i didn’t know ‘beetle’ at all)
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We’ve done something similar and my boys loved it. Thanks for the reminder!