Math Dice Tournament Kit

satisfied

First off, truth in advertising, ThinkFun sent me these kits free to try in my classroom to review them. And, truth in advertising, I am a big ThinkFun fan. So if I seem a little harsh, let me prefeact this review by saying I own at least 40 of their products and would recommend all of them for the most part.I am a 5th grade teacher in a multi-ability classroom of 22 children. We have been using Math Dice now for a month, the tournament for a few weeks. There are a lot of positives to say about this product. before using it in the classroom, I had once set of Math Dice I would project on the ELMO overhead and we would solve as a class/group/individual to get practice on it. Furthermore, I downloaded some free activities from ThinkFun on their homepage that helped the children understand what to do with MathDice and to reiniforce the concept of Order of Operations.The Good:1. Most kids will get involved with this game - the tournament set up eventually allows them to trickle down/up to kids their level. As a teacher, I can actually hear them thinking aloud.."Hmm..4 times 4 is 16 adding 3 is 19 but I need 22. So 4 times 3 is twelve..etc.) And this thinking aloud happens on all levels.2. It's a great tool to teach kids order of operations with parenthesis and exponents, as well as basic operations. It can be adjusted to add or subtract whatever operations you are working on at the time. If you have a gifted population, you might multiply the two dice together for target number and include exponents. For a lower ability class, they may add the two dice together, and use basic operations.3. After a few tournaments, the kids can set it up themselves, which gives you the time to really observe HOW they are working on their math, which is a great luxury and can influence your lesson plans for the next week based off your observations.4. You can also go on ThinkFun's homepage and have the kids practice virtually on that home page.5. It matches up well with the 5th grade Common Core in Math 2nd quarter!The Bad:1. The tournament is set up for 12-18 kids. Too bad you can't do it with 19-23 kids, which is my classroom. I do double and manage just fine. But our 6th grade class has 29 kids, and they don't have the room to do two seperate tournaments. This isn't really a fault of the the creators, but I was wondering if they could have created an algorithm to set up a tournament of 20, or 22.2. For the price, you are getting some dice and some instructions. While the product is good, the price may not lend itself to some teachers purchasing it. I know if I saw it in action in my school, I would copy the tournament tree and buy the dice on my own. Mind you, this would be for educational purposes and not for home use - still sticky ethically I know, but if it teaches them Math.3. I'm starting to see some kids feel self defeated - they know where they are landing as a far as a group and can see the smart kids excelling and we are getting some repeat winners. This, again, may not be the fault of the designers, but more for the classroom teacher to work on variations of the Tournament.So, overall, if you are a math teacher, say high 3rd grade up to 7-8th grade, this is a great addition to your classroom if you have the funds, space (6 games going at once) and area for some competitive math noise, I would recommend it.

Great game! Wonderful way to encourage math fluency.

great for centers

ThinkFun has always been my go to for learning games for my kids. As a home school mom I find it super important to keep learning fun and engaging and the best way to do that is through play. We haven't had an actual math tournament using the dice, but in our little school room their are lots of ideas in the box that work great for kids of any age.My husband and I play the games from the box with my daughter and she can beat us a lot of the time, we can make it as challenging or easy as it needs to be for the individual players and I love that. My preschooler and 1st grader get in on the action too, just on a smaller scale. We let the preschooler roll just one dice and just put the chips on the numbers he rolls on one of the blank sheets you can customize. For my first grader, he rolls two and adds them. For my third grader she gets to multiply her dice and they are all evenly matched.It comes with everything you need for a big tournament, so we will be getting together with other home schooling families when my kids are a little older and make a day of it, but for now it makes learning math fun...and that in itself is a huge plus. (Ha, "plus" see what I did there?) :)

This was probably my fault, maybe I didn't read the description too well. This should be bought by a teacher or someone who will use it with a group of kids. I have two grandsons and we enjoyed using it, but not all 6 sets of dice. :)

I am a math coach in Arlington, Virginia, and have used Math Dice products with my students for over 9 years. The game is simple to learn, easy to play, and the pay off is amazing!! Students develop speedy, flexible, computation skills using the four operations and exponents, while having fun. From using the products during Family Math Nights, to facilitating an enrichment club, to coaching our school's team to participate in a yearly county wide tournament, I am a dedicated fan of Math Dice. This tournament kit provides a great way to hold class competitions during the school year. Our students LOVE the game. I really like that the kit has included other games that students can play between tournaments. I highly recommend this product to anyone who would love to turn practicing mental math skills into an event that students ask for!

I recently received this kit from ThinkFun to review. As a math specialist, I work with teachers and students in Grades K - 12. I have played math dice before in the classroom, at home with my own children, as a tournament, and during a family night setting. ThinkFun has taken this game and made it SOOO simple to prepare and play. It not only has clear instructions, it comes with everything you need. As a teacher, I recommend laminating some of the items, to make them last longer, but that is truly the only thing you will need to do for instant fun and learning! MathDice is a GREAT way to reinforce the order of operations and get students "talking math." The ThinkFun website also has other FREE MathDice resources that can be printed out. These also resources are good for building the order of operations skills.

Great value for money. Excellent quality bulbs for the best price online.

Great game!

AS DESCRIBED DELIVERED AS PROMISED