Breaking the Rules….No Dice!  

LSEM > stories > Wow Story > Breaking the Rules….No Dice!  

Breaking the Rules….No Dice!  

  • March 18, 2026
  • Posted by: Emilie Flynn
  • Category: Wow Story
No Comments

The latest game I introduced to some of my students is a math game called No Dice!  When I bought it, I worried it might be too difficult for some of my students. But it was cheap, so I picked it up thinking I could probably modify it if necessary. The idea is to roll the 5 dice to make an equation that equals a value closest to 0. The first player to a preset number, loses. The instructions say not to include negative values and that dividing by 0 is ok. I did not like those last two rules. I told the students we would never divide by 0 in real life, so we weren’t going to do that in our game either.  

 After playing a couple of rounds with a group of four students, I could tell they were not sure if they liked this game. So, I decided to change the rules. We were now going to use negative numbers. They weren’t sure they understood negative numbers well enough. I told them we’d figure it out. I demonstrated using a number line on a small white board, and off we went! Within two rounds they were jumping up and down and, best of all, helping each other out. It was awesome!  

 When using games with students, we see academic, social, and kinesthetic benefits.  

  • Students tend to be more engaged in the games than any ‘amazing’ lesson I might plan. 
  • Practicing skills is great, but learning new skills to play a game seems a little less like ‘work’. 
  • I often adjust (or break) the rules to fit the students’ playing, and they’ve also become good at adapting the rules to make the games more fun, challenging, educational, or interesting.  
  • Students practice winning and losing…gracefully. (Good sportsmanship is an important skill to learn when playing with friends.)  
  • Students help each other when needed and learn when to let others figure things out on their own.  
  • We tend to be energetic when playing; it keeps our brains awake. 

 There are a couple of down sides of using games in my classroom: 

  • If I forget to leave the rule adaptations for a wonderful community member who has subbed for me, the kids ‘scold’ me when I return.  

The other downside is that kids kind of enjoy our time (great!) “because all we ever do is play games!” (Sigh, I promise that’s not all we do).