Games to play with dice

Things to keep in your nappy bag to keep children occupied while waiting for an appointment: what do you always carry with you? Small books, paper and pencils, pot of bubble stuff? How about a dice*? Here’s a couple of suggestions for simple dice games to play whenever you need to keep the kids entertained for 10 minutes.

Gimme 6

One of you picks a category: fruit, vegetables, things that are yellow, things that start with ‘a’, things that are triangular – whatever you like! The other person rolls the dice and whatever number they land on they have to name that number of things in the category. Good to play with 5s and under as they can usually manage to think of up to 6 things, so you’re not hanging around waiting for them to think of the last one. Playing quite quickly with lots of different categories keeps them busier. For older children you might like to make the categories harder: places that start with ‘s’, planets, foods that grown underground, people who work in a hospital?

If you’re waiting outside, or somewhere with a bit of space, you can play a physical version of Gimme 6. Categories can include star jumps, touches of your toes, laps to the nearest lamppost, hops, forward rolls.

*OK, I know the singular of dice is die, but do you every say ‘die’? When I say it to B’s friends they don’t know what I’m talking about, so I’m bowing to what seems to be the norm nowadays are going with ‘a dice’. Happy to be  corrected – what do you say?