Building by Chance

One of my favorite ways to add in some sneaky numeracy to our day is to play a game, but with the addition of a dice. Here's how we turned our game of Blocks Rock! into a game of chance.

We were kindly gifted this Blocks Rock! game for purpose of review. You can use code FINDMORE for 15% off on Amazon (cannot be combined with other Amazon offers). All opinions and images are our own and completely genuine.

Games are a great way to work on many different skills, but have you ever changed the rules slightly to add a whole new twist to the game? We decided to change up how we play Blocks Rock!, our favorite STEM focused building block game. It only took one extra piece of equipment... a dice!

How it works:

The game follows the same concept. A player flips over a challenge card and both players have to complete the build shown on the card with their identical set of blocks. Usually with Blocks Rock! it's a race to see who can build it the fastest and then ring the bell to claim victory. That's a really fun way to play, but I wanted to find away for my 6 year old and 2.5 year old to be able to play together, on more of a level playing field.

So instead of racing to build the structure on the card, they took it in turns to roll the dice and then they could only use that number of blocks for that turn. For example, if big bro rolled a six, he was allowed to add six blocks to the build.

After he had added his six blocks, he was allowed to ring the bell which let baby sis know that it was her turn to roll the dice.

She would then add her blocks (with a little help from me of course), and ring the bell herself. And so the turns continued. It was a great way of slowing the game down for baby sis, without hindering the engagement level for big bro. He was in charge of counting each dice roll which was great for his numeracy. Of course, baby sis tried to copy which is just as good for her numeracy development.

Inevitably baby sis lost focus (#toddlerlife), but it was interesting to see that big bro happily continued playing the game by himself. He seemed to really like the element of chance that using the dice created.