What you need
- Two dice (borrow them from a Ludo or Snakes-and-Ladders box)
- A sheet of paper and a pen to keep score
How to play
- 1
Set the target
Write both names at the top of the paper. First person to reach 100 points wins. Ten minutes is usually enough for one game.
- 2
Roll and multiply
Roll both dice. The two numbers multiplied together is your score for that turn. A 4 and a 6 is 24 points. Write it down and add it to your running total.
- 3
Say how you got there
The rule for both players: you have to say the answer out loud before you write it. Not just the number — how you got it. "Six fours: double 12 is 24." This is the part that does the teaching.
- 4
Let him catch you
Make a mistake on purpose sometimes and let him correct you. A child who has just corrected an adult on 6 × 7 remembers 42 far longer than one who was told it.
- 5
Play again tomorrow
Ten minutes a day beats an hour on Sunday. Keep the score sheet and let him see his own totals getting faster over the week.
What your child is learning
Honestly stated — this is what the activity actually builds, not a list of everything it might touch.
- Multiplication facts up to 6 × 6, met over and over without drilling
- Adding two-digit numbers in his head to keep his own score
- Losing and trying again, which is easier over dice than over homework
Why this one works
Two dice cover almost the whole bottom half of the times table — every fact from 1 × 1 up to 6 × 6 — and they come up in random order, which is the part a worksheet cannot do. A worksheet marches down the 3 table in order, so a child who counts up can keep counting up and still finish the page. Dice give him 4 × 6 and then 2 × 5 and then 6 × 6, and counting from the start every time quickly becomes too slow to be worth it. He starts looking for shortcuts on his own, which is exactly what you want.
Make it easier
If he is still finding this hard, use one die and a fixed number: he rolls, and multiplies whatever comes up by 5. Then by 2. Then by 10. Those three tables are the anchors everything else is built from, and they are worth being fast at before anything else.
Make it harder
Add a third die and multiply all three. Or use a ten-sided die from a board-game set if you have one, which pushes it up into the 7, 8 and 9 tables where the genuinely hard facts live.
A note on winning
Let the game be real. If you always let him win, he knows, and the win stops counting for anything. Play properly and let him beat you honestly — with a handicap if he needs one, like you starting at 0 and him starting at 30.
Published 16 August 2026 · Suitable for Early schooler, Big kid