Camp Fun: Dice

Over Easter weekend, I learned a new game while visiting my grandparents and its a perfect camp game. All you need are five dice, a bowl and objects to use as markers. We used pennies, but if you need to you could probably use pine cones, pebbles, or jelly beans.

The game is called Dice...that's it, nice and simple. It's easy for kids to pick up, has no set number of players, the tools won't take up much space in your backpack, and its fun.

To start off, everyone gets 3 of whatever marker you are using. The first person rolls all five dice. For every 1 rolled, that person passes a marker forward to the next person in the circle. For every 2 rolled, you pass a marker to the person behind you. For every three rolled, you put that many markers in the bowl (the kitty) You have to remember to do these in order, 1s first, then 2s, then 3s. 4, 5 and 6 are safe numbers, meaning they don't make you do anything.

So...if you have 3 markers and you roll the following, 1, 1, 3, 5, 5 you would pass 2 markers to the next person and put one in the kitty. This leaves you with no markers left but it doesn't put you out of the game. The next person, on their roll may roll a 2 thus giving you a marker, and when it gets around to the person behind you, they may roll a 1, giving you a marker too.

If you had rolled 1, 2, 2, 3, 3 when you had three markers, you pass one forward, two back and obviously can't do the threes. You always keep to the numerical order of the tasks.

If its your turn, and you have no markers, you don't roll. Eventually more and more markers will find their way into kitty. The game ends when only one person has markers. It takes about 5-10 minutes, depending on how many people are playing. See, very simple.

When we were camping we had planned to play this with foil wrapped easter candy but the kids ended up falling asleep right after dinner. You could play this for reward...say you played with candy. Everyone has to bring their own ante, and whoever wins the round gets to keep all the candy in the kitty. If you are playing with pinecones, you could make the fire the kitty. Kids love to throw things into the fire, so rolling a 3 would let them burn things. Of course, this would mean you would run out of markers, unless your camp site happens to have an abundance of them lying around.