Tenzi || A Game of Dice Review
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Math is not often our kids’ favorite subject, and Timberdoodle has this in mind when they select high-quality games for each grade level to reinforce math skills. It’s time to make learning fun!
Tenzi game of dice was quick to capture my daughter’s attention when we opened her 2nd-grade curriculum kit. She’s a huge fan of games and also has an affinity for dice, so she was eager to try it out.
A special thanks to Timberdoodle Company for sponsoring this homeschool series of posts by graciously sending us this complimentary game of Tenzi to see what we think. All opinions are our own!
Tenzi is a part of the 2nd-grade Curriculum Kit, and is also available individually with the game and card deck.
Featuring four bright-colored sets of 10 dice each, Tenzi is ready to be played by 1-4 players. Recommended for ages 7 and up, it’s the perfect fit for 2nd grade (and beyond) as little hands and brains learn to work quickly and accurately.
The curriculum handbook suggests playing Tenzi at least once a week, so we have it scheduled into our math lesson on Wednesdays. A little something to look forward to in the middle of the week!
The basic Tenzi game for 2-4 players calls for each player to pick a color of dice and roll their handful of 10 dice. Quickly looking at the numbers you rolled, you pick the number you rolled the most of and set those aside, gathering up your other dice and rolling, again and again, to see who can collect all the same number first. It’s fast and furious, and a good competition!
But that’s just one way to play Tenzi. The instructions with the dice have 8 more ideas for play, and the deck of cards offers 77 more ways to play with the dice! With all those ideas, it’s easy to try out 2 ideas a week to get through them in a school year.
There are 3 kinds of Tenzi games: regular (speed) games, pattern games, and non-speed games. The card deck has a mix of all 3 kinds.
Pattern games offer a fun challenge as each player attempts to roll their dice to make the pattern the quickest–finishing by rolling a 6 with their final dice (since the pattern only uses 9 dice). I didn’t realize how difficult it was to try to get one dice to be a 6 until we played these pattern games!
My daughter and I enjoy looking through the card deck each week to select which game we will try that day. She looks forward to new challenges, and I appreciate that every game is helping her learn to count, calculate, estimate, problem-solve, and so much more. I also really enjoy playing the games too! They aren’t difficult to learn, and it’s a simple grab-and-go game.
In addition to learning math skills, she’s also practicing good social-emotional skills like good sportsmanship (mom is a little faster at math most of the time), cooperation, and communication. Our current favorite variation of the game: Farmzi – “make the sound of your favorite barnyard animal after each and every roll”. Laughter is good for everyone–especially during school!
Tenzi is a part of the 2nd-grade Curriculum Kit, and is also available individually with the game and card deck.
More Articles About Homeschooling:
- Timberdoodle 2nd Grade Custom Curriculum Kit Overview (2023-2024)
- The Happy Cheetah Reading System Difference || Our Results After 30 Days
- Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright!
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