How to Play Target Number {A Math Dice Game!}

Learn how to play Target Number! This is a fabulous math game that works for third grade all the way up through 6th.

Wait… how does a math game work for ALL those levels? You can choose the complexity of the game by choosing how many dice to use.

This game is perfect for developing number sense while using the basic operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

When you add more dice to the game, you’ll then need to work on order of operations. No one really enjoys learning about order of operations, but it’s a LOT more tolerable (and even fun?) when you’re playing a dice game!

Target Number can also be played with a deck of cards. I read instructions online for several different versions, and then my 6th grader and I chose how we wanted to play. Here’s what we did!

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Supplies Needed:

• Dice – 3 to 5 per player
• Paper
• Pencils, markers, or whatever you want to write with

If you’re doing this with a class, here’s a pack of 60 dice for math games on Amazon!

If you prefer name brand, here’s a pack of 5 Bicycle brand dice.

How to Play Target Number for 3rd and 4th Graders (ages 9 – 10):

Step 1: Roll two dice. That gives you your target number. You can decide which order the digits should go in. For example, if you roll a 2 and a 5, this could be 25 or 52. We took turns rolling the target number and decided that the person who rolls gets to decide the order of the digits.

Step 2: Roll three dice. Use the numbers on your dice to create a math sentence that gets as close as possible to the target number. You can add, subtract, multiply, or divide, or any combination of these operations. The player who is the closest wins that round!

Each dice must be used, and each dice should only be used once. So if you a 5, you can’t use it twice. But if you roll two 5’s, then you must use them both.

In some games, you are trying to get as close as possible to the target number without going over. We decided that going over is fine, just whoever is closest wins.

This was Janie’s recording sheet. The stars show the rounds that she won. 🙂

On our fourth round, she got the exact number! The target number was 14, and she rolled a 5, 3, and 1. She was able to do 5 x 3 – 1 = 14.

Notice that on the last round, I had to show her how to use parentheses because she wanted to add 6 + 3 and then multiply that total by 5. If she had just written 6 + 3 x 5, the answer would be 21, which is not very close to 54!

How to Play Target Number for 5th and 6th Graders (ages 10 – 11):

Step 1: Roll 2 dice to get your target number, following the same instructions as above.

Step 2: Roll 4 dice, or even 5. Use the numbers that you rolled to create a number sentence that is as close as possible to the target number.

Rolling 4 dice instead of 3 leads to a lot more possibilities as far as number sentences go.

In the example below, the target number was 66, and I rolled a 2, 3, 5, and 6.

Here’s where order of operations becomes necessary!

We teach it with the acronym PEMDAS – parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction.

To get as close as I could to 66, I did (6 + 3) x (5 + 2) = 63.

Another option is to do (6 x 2 x 5) + 3, which also equals 63.

If you roll 5 dice, it gets even more fun! I found a way to make 43, but then realized that I could actually get to 45, which was even closer to the target number of 46.

I didn’t actually need the double parentheses on that last one, but I was making sure that the 5 and 3 would be added before multiplying. It could be expressed more simply as: 6 x (5 + 3) + 2 – 5.

My 6th grade daughter really enjoyed this game! She came back to it for fun several times during the week.

Need more hands-on elementary math activities?

You can browse all of our hands-on math activities for elementary here.