We are away for the summer at a cottage, with no internet or TV, which I usually love. We’ve already read lots of books, frolicked in the waves, swam to the Big Rock,  sailed to Seagull Island, canoed…dumped the canoe and had lots of good old fashioned fun; but my heart still felt the pitter-patter of excitement when I saw the clouds roll in, because that meant we could drive to the nearest town and spend the morning at Chapters!  

Don’t you love rainy days at Chapters? (Borders would probably be the US equivalent).The boys love playing with Thomas the train in the kids section, and looking at all the books, while I finally get a chance to peruse the latest best-sellers in person, instead of on Amazon! We go to the library every week, but it’s just not the same as a road trip to Chapters. And when we went yesterday, I felt like I hit the jackpot with my new find: TENZI!

Best. Game. Ever!!! Kevin and Steve (the game’s designers), made known by a little piece of paper in the game box with their story on it, may not have thought of the mathematical implications when they came up with the idea for the game, but kudos to them for unwittingly designing a brilliant game suitable for 3-103 year olds!!

Here is the general gist of the game, and I quote: “Everyone gets 10 dice. Then everyone rolls until someone gets all their dice on the same number.” Simple, right? Why am I so excited by this new find? Because of its GINORMOUS educational value! It’s like this game was conceived specifically with the pre-kindergarten to grade 2 curriculum in mind,  yet it’s intended for everyone!

Here’s why I love it:

Subitizing!

Subitizing is the ability to recognize number patterns without counting. Rory quickly grasped what the dot patterns stood for and although he still counted the dots on each new turn, the repetition of looking for the same dot pattern reinforces his learning. I am confident that after a few more rounds, he will quickly and easily know the dot patterns for 1-6 without counting.

Counting on!

If you have 3 of the same number and get one more, now you have 4. Rory was learning and Practicing math skills without even knowing it! He already has developed one to one correspondence and cardinality, but now we’re extending his knowledge. What is 3 and 3 more, or 4 more, or 5 more?! Because each turn is different, he is continually practicing different amounts of counting on.

Decomposition and recomposition of 10 (a very important bench-mark number)!

Because the goal of the game is to get 10 dice all on the same number, you are constantly looking for two numbers that make up 10: those you already have with the same number on them and those you have yet to roll. Rory quickly saw when he needed one more to make 10, and then we looked to see that he already had 9. Or he had 5 of the same number and needed 5 more. And that leads to….

Addition!

Decomposition of 10 is the building block to addition and although we didn’t concentrate on it today (it was our first time after all!), eventually we will use this game to practice our 10 facts. We can easily adapt it to practice our 5 facts first, just play with 5 dice each instead and yell, Fivzi!

Fun!

This game is fun for the whole family!  Oliver got in on the action too but only to yell “Tenzi! “ and steal our dice to make a tower, but I’m sure he’ll see the math value soon!! It was me that finally drew the game to a close after almost an hour; Rory could have kept playing forever!

So Kevin and Steve (fortuitous mathematical master-minds that you are!), thank you for a fun and easy game that everyone can play. It looks like you two have a whole new market to exploit and hopefully I’ve inspired some new fans here!

If you want to know more, check out their website at www.ilovetenzi.com. Thank heavens for rainy days!!

Have other great math games that aren’t actually meant to be math games?

Post them in the comments section below!

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