Lego Towers! Math game

I was working with my four year old the other day on her maths and we started looking at, adding one and taking away. I could see, she needed more practice and thought about turning it into a game!

This is the game we made and here's the instructions with a free printable spinner too if you'd like to try it out for yourself.

What you will need for this game:

• A die 
• A short pencil 
• 7 pieces of Lego. We used a studded pieces .
• A piece of paper and another pencil - this is optional.
• Thin cardboard - cereal box cardboard works well.

STEP ONE

Print out this spinner. Stick it to some strong cardboard.  Cereal box cardboard will do.

STEP TWO

Cut it out.

STEP THREE

Push your short pencil. Very sharp pencil through the centre. Be careful not to hurt your fingers, a good idea is to have some sticky tack the otherside to take the impact.

Now for the rules of play...

First person to play rolls the die.

The number on the die is the number of Lego bricks to use top build a tower.

Now spin the spinner.

If it lands on a + you add one more brick, if it lands on a - you take a brick away. How many are left?

Now the second player takes their turn.  Who ever has the tower with the most bricks at the end of their turn is the winner.

Repeat for as many times as it remains fun.  Best out of 3,5,7 etc.

Harmonie and I took this one step further, for extra number practice, she used her paper and extra pencil to write down each sum.  This was great practice for her and she really enjoyed it and it also helped to remember scores.

This game gave Harmonie new maths vocabulary to become familiar with:

• Add
• Take away
• Plus
• Minus
• Subtract
• More
• Less
• Equals