· 2 min read · Ages 4–8 · Pre-K through Grade 2
A dice game mat that runs itself while you make dinner
One die, twenty circles, a crayon, and the rule printed at the top. The child plays alone for fifteen minutes and practices subitizing the whole time.
Five o'clock, two kids, and a pot that needs stirring. A roll-and-cover mat on the table has rescued more of our evenings than I can count. One child rolls, finds the number, colors a circle. The other one waits for a turn. The rule is on the page, so nobody needs to ask me anything.
What the sheet looks like
The dice games generator prints one of six mats with its rule at the top. Roll and cover scatters numbered circles across the page. Roll and colour the graph is a bar chart that fills up roll by roll. Roll, add and write gives boxes to draw the dots and a line for the sum. Roll and build pairs number cards with frames to fill. Roll and write the number has a row per number. Roll and race is lanes to the finish. Dice can be one die for 1–6, two dice added for 2–12, or two dice multiplied for 1–36 on the cover and write mats. A Mixed set prints three different mats at once.
Why it works
- Reading a die face without counting the dots is subitizing, and a roll-and-cover mat gets a child to do it forty times in a sitting without noticing.
- The graph mat is a child's first bar chart, and because the numbers have no reason to come up evenly, it is also a first conversation about chance. Why does 7 win so often with two dice?
- There is no losing. The mat is done when it is full, which keeps a four-year-old going.
Who it suits
One die with Roll and cover or Roll and build is pre-K and kindergarten. Two dice added is grade 1, and Roll, add and write is a quiet way to drill sums to 12. Two dice multiplied is a grade 2 or 3 option and makes Roll and cover a times-table game. For a child who needs to see the numbers on a frame before building them, the ten frames sheet is the one to print alongside.
Print the Mixed set. Three mats means three evenings.