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Throw the Dice Game

Students practise their numbers in Japanese in this fun dice game. Groups work together to try and get up to the total number chosen by the teacher within their limit of throws.

Preparation

Make number dice from Number Sheet. Cut Score Sheets.

Procedure

Group Work

The teacher announces the “Target number” before game starts.
Students form groups of 4 ~ 6 and each group is given a dice and a score sheet. Who goes first in each group can be decided by じゃんけん scissors, paper, rock.
The first player throws the dice and says the number out loud in Japanese. If the star (*) comes up, the students can call any number they choose.
The rest of the group listen to see if the number is read correctly. The number is then recorded on the score sheet. When each member of the group has had five turns, the points are tallied and person who got the closest number to the target number wins.

Variations

  1. When students are familiar with numbers 1-9, they can throw two dice at once and make numbers from 10 to 99. With three dice they can advance to numbers 100-999.
  2. If students are learning numbers in kanji, dice made from Kanji Number Sheet can be used for the above activities.
  3. If students are learning classifiers, dice can be made of these from the Classifier Sheet (1), (2), (3) and (4). Students throw a number dice and a classifier dice together and call out that combination of number and classifier. If the star (*) comes up, the students can use a classifier of their choice.

Score Sheet

Score sheet (Word 27KB)

Numbers

Dice (9-0) (Word 107KB)
Dice (1-6) (Word 309KB)
Dice (一-六) (Word 107KB)
Dice (七-十) (Word 110KB)
Dice (blank) (Word 97KB)

Resource created by Eiko Nakamura and Michie Akahane-Suparman (April 1994).

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