"Cool" Dice Games for Summer, and They're So Easy to Make!

Hello, Teaching Friends!

I was in Five Below the other day, looking through beach blanket holder-downers, lawn darts, flipflops, and all that type of thing, when I came across these plastic reusable ice cubes. Oh, my,  the ol' teacher brain started whirring!

Now, before I say anything else, let me just tell you that you couldn't pay me enough to ever put these plastic ice cubes filled with some kind of liquid into my drink. First of all, they're plastic, and the whole set cost $1. Ummmm, okay. Second, what IS that liquid, and how sure can I be that none of it is seeping out through some itty bitty pinhole and into my iced tea? This does not fit with the health choices of someone who is paying top dollar for organic produce.  The option is yours, but I'll opt out, thanks.

On the other hand, as an easy-to-make and novel hands on center activity, I say YES!!!

All you need to do is...

1. Label all sides of each cube using a Sharpie or other permanent marker.

2. Pop them in the freezer.

3. Bring them out for some very cool fun!


Kids will love rolling these cool cubes so much that they'll want to keep playing games with them again and again. And again! I haven't had any problems at all with condensation on the cubes, plus they stay frozen for a good long time, even with all the handling.  It also takes quite a lot of playing for the labels to wear off, and they're easy enough to write on again quickly.

These examples are labeled for CVC words.

There are lots of other possibilities for programming these cubes. If you write numbers on them, your students can roll five dice and write all of the number models they can using only the numbers rolled. Also with number dice, you can use this fluency freebie. Roll, read the summer sentences fluently, and color in a box. Just click to download.

Enjoy, ... and keep cool!

Happy Teaching!