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For those of you who thought Yahtzee was just a game – it can also be a math lesson! You don’t make it into a lesson, of course. You just play Yahtzee and help the child add the numbers as you play.

The box says “Ages 8 & Up”, but our 5-year-old likes to play. He does not know all the addition tables quite yet, but I have found that Yahtzee is a good way to teach them to him. He knows some of them, and I figure that after a few more games he will have learned all his addition combinations.

Then we can start using Yahtzee to teach multiplication. And then probability and statistics.

Since he is still learning how to win and lose sportingly, I was trying not to win.  If we’re playing Mario Kart and I’m winning, he asks me to slow down so he can win.  Of course, his younger brother has the same problem of not liking to lose, so I am trying to teach them to take turns winning.  I hope that each of them will be able, eventually, to be able to lose the game without losing composure.  I don’t want to suppress the desire to win – I just want them to handle losing.  And to be nice to their siblings.

Back to the main thought here: I was trying not to win the game of Yahtzee that I was playing with the 5-year-old.  But I was also demonstrating the rules and reinforcing how to play the game correctly, so I was making sure that I matched what I got to the correct category and added the points correctly.  It’s not like Mario Kart racing where I can ease off the throttle.  When I play Yahtzee with my wife, she gets the 5-of-a-kind Yahtzee roll of the dice and wins.  I cannot seem to get the 50-point Yahtzee.

Until now, playing against the child…  I was able to keep it kind of close until then.  He did seem to handle the loss rather well.  I suppose the concept of winning a numbers game might be a bit abstract, not the same as a race, so maybe it didn’t affect him the same way.  Or maybe he has learned to blame the dice already.

“They cast lots for their duties, all alike, the small as well as the great, the teacher as well as the pupil.”
– 1 Chronicles 25:8