Are you looking for some fun dice ideas to do with your students? You’re in the right place! Wanna know what is one of my favorite things to engage my students? It’s dice! There are so many things you can do with dice and they are so easy yet so engaging. These activities range from games, to enticing students to speak and write, as well as do a little bit of a brain break.
In my school bag, there are a couple of things that I always bring with me. A whiteboard marker is one of them, as well as a little bag of highlighters, but the most important ones are dice and game pieces. Especially dice always come in handy for a number of activities that I do with my students. Let me tell you all about them!
If you want to know what I do with my whiteboard marker, ideas that are also super easy and fun, then you should grab my free 7 Best Games for Whiteboard Markers right here!
Dice ideas
My favorite dice ideas include ( which also work great as big dice game ideas by the way):
- Board games
- Writing prompts
- Speaking prompts
- Brain break activities
- Roll the letter
Board games
One of my favorite dice games are board games! I like to use board games for learning because they can be played in small groups, they encourage cooperative learning, they create movement, and they encourage accountability amongst students in the small group.
I like for my board games to ask students questions when they land on a box. When they answer that question, they must use either some grammar that we have gone over or some vocabulary that they just learned. In this activity, they show the members of their small group what they have learned in the lesson.
Writing prompts
This one takes a minute to start, but you can easily ask students for help. Have them come up with about six words in each of these three categories: character, setting, and object. Write them on the whiteboard next to a number out of six and make sure each number has an equal amount of words assigned to it. Then pass each small group a die. Each student needs to roll the dice 3 times in order to get one word in each category. They must then use those words in a story of their own making! You could also have them roll twice for each category to have more words to use.
If you think this is too much of an effort: I’ve created a bunch of no-prep roll-the-dice writing prompts sheets, which you can find here in my store.
Speaking prompts
Beforehand, you will need to come up with 6 questions you want students to discuss in their groups. Put them up on the board and number them 1 to 6. Have students roll the dice. The number of the question that corresponds with what’s on the dice is the question they must answer. If you want them to answer more than one question, just have them keep on rolling. You could come up with questions about topics such as family, friendship, hobbies, or school life, or more advanced ones like history, the environment, and politics. You could do different rounds with new questions as well.
Brain break activities
Before you start, come up with 6 or 12 moves, like ‘jump 10 times’, ‘box the sky’, ‘do jumping jacks’, ‘touch your toes 5 times’, etc. More is better, because this activity goes quite fast. Number them 1 to 6 and put them up on the board. Then have one student roll the dice. The number they land on is the move the whole class must do! Come up with more advanced or intricate moves to challenge students. You could have students roll two dice to get to moves 7 to 12.
Roll the letter for vocabulary words
Another one of my dice game ideas is roll the letter! First, write down all the letters of the alphabet on the board and number them 1 to 26. Use four dice. Have a student roll all four dice. The combined number of dots on these dice is the letter your students must use. Tell them to write down 5 vocabulary words starting with this letter. Then roll again for a new letter. Give them a category to make this more difficult, like ‘clothes’, ‘jobs’, or ‘school’, or words with a certain suffix, like ‘-ment’ or ‘-able’.
Dice activities preparation
Now before you play these easy dice games and tasks, you must have firm procedures in place that students know well. You don’t want them to become rowdy and you don’t want to lose control. This doesn’t mean things can’t get really chaotic, because kids just get carried away when they get to use dice, lol. But make sure they know how to behave.
For example, first, I tell students to pack up everything they have on their desk. Then I tell them what I want them to do with their desks (group them together) and that they must take care of it quickly. Last, I give them the instructions for the game, and I tell them I need all the dice and game pieces back as ‘I bought everything with my own money’ and it’s precious to me. Also make sure students know when the activity starts and when it ends. Take visible control before and after the activity, and provide a clear beginning and end to it by summarizing what the class just did back to them.
If you do these things, then I know you and your students are going to have a great time! So definitely try some of these dice ideas with your kids, and let me know how they went!
If you are looking for other ways to have some quick and easy fun in your classroom, check out this article that is all about that!
No time to check out another article? Try these Whiteboard Marker Games right now!
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