Yacht, better known by its commercial name Yahtzee, started around 1938, and has many excellent educational benefits, in addition to being a fun and exciting dice game to play! It can be played by one player, multiple players, or as a team, and can be played at just about any age.
Note: Very young children should be supervised so they don’t swallow the dice. Large dice can be purchased and used to play instead.
Learning Perks…
As you may already know, games are an excellent way to learn or hone multiple skills at once. Yacht is no exception! Here are a few of the more obvious educational perks, or benefits of the physical game:
- Yacht has a strong basis in math, mainly: Counting, addition, and multiplication, and sometimes, depending on how you tally the dice, subtraction.
- Mental math skills are used to quickly total up the dice thrown.
- Writing Skills: Players need to keep track of their score by writing them down on the score sheet, which is a chart.
- It is naturally a game of: Probability, strategy, problem solving, deductive reasoning, and decision making.
- Young children, people with special needs, and older people can build dexterity by picking up the dice, putting them into a cup, shaking them, and spilling them out. Larger dice can be used as well.
- Observation skills and quick thinking are needed to make decisions.
- Learn how to be a good sport when things go wrong… or right!
- Empathy for other players when they are trying to reach a goal and succeed or fail.
- Being supportive when a goal is not reached.
- Following the rules.
- Waiting for your turn increases attention span!
- Reduces stress when you keep it fun and interesting!!!
What you need to play…
5 dice, pencils, instructions, and a scoring sheet
Optional items include: A cup and something to throw the dice into such as a bowl. You can also purchase the full game. Look for Yahtzee game sets in the toy department of your favorite store or online.
The History of the Game, The Rules, Downloadable Score Sheets, Fun Ways to Play, Online Resources and Videos…
Wikipedia: Yacht (dice game) – Information about the game, its history, and how to play. Also see Yahtzee for information about the commercial game made by Milton Bradley.
Math Is Fun: Yacht – Play a one player online version.
Game Rules Guru: Yacht – Game instructions and downloadable score sheets for Yacht.
Yacht Lawn Dice Game: PDF Scoring Sheets – Free. This scoring sheet is for the Lawn version of the game. See video below for how to make outdoor dice.
Yahtzee Online: Printable Yahtzee Score Sheet – Printable score sheets, score cards, and Triple Yahtzee Score Cards. All PDF format.
Memory Improvement Tips: Printable Yahtzee Score Sheets – Large print format available. Prints full page. Also offers Team Play Version of the score sheet.
TIP: Look for an app for the game in your favorite App Store as well!
YouTube: Yacht Playlist – How to make your own lawn dice, how to play the game, and probability of Yahtzee. Here’s a video from the list…
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