PIG OUT
Las Vegas in your own kitchen – what could be Freakier?
INTRO
Break out the dice from your old board games [PROCEDURE – RECYCLE] and get ready to oink with victory or defeat! You’ll enjoy some good old-fashioned gambling with this math game when you show off your knowledge of addition and fill your piggy bank as you go. You can rack up practice on your addition facts to twelve without having to fill in workbook pages or answer endless flashcards.
Plus, rolling the dice makes you feel like a real casino gambler. Use your imagination to transform your kitchen table into a gaming table—throw on a green tablecloth, if you have one, to imitate the green felt covers in Las Vegas casinos. Hear the clink of coins as players hit the jackpot and imagine yourself in a sharp suit or designer dress, loud music playing and the smell of riches and perfume in the air. You won’t need cards for this, or a roulette wheel, just a reliable set of dice and maybe your lucky dice cup (snag the plastic one from your old Yahtzee game if you like). It’ll be every bit as good as Las Vegas, except in real casinos, no one ever gets to oink and dance around.
In games of chance, strategy is important. All good game players are strategists—they use what they know to make winning decisions. With this in mind, you’ll want to practice by yourself first and develop a plan to win so you can teach the game to a friend, parent or sibling and then beat them at it. The idea is to roll the dice and add up your score you go. You get to keep rolling as many times as you like but as soon as you roll a 1 your total score drops to zero and you do a piggy forfeit. Figure out through practice how many times you want to roll on each turn because when you end your turn you get to keep the score you got and add it to your total. If you roll a pair of ones you’ll trash your whole score down to zero for the entire game, so watch out!
Ask a friendly parent or other relative to help you with your math and then explain that you’re working on your addition facts. Display how to roll a pair of dice and use the pips as addends. Record the sum on paper and keep rolling and adding to demonstrate and then when you get a 1 explain what happens. When you roll a 1 you “Pig Out’ which means you were greedy and have to oink because you lost your points. After your new player understands the game, you’ll play a practice round without keeping score to make sure they know how to play.
Then you explain that you’re learning to count money as well and you’d like to tie that in by playing for pennies or nickels[PROCEDURE – MEASURES]. Place the coins in the middle of the table and when either player completes a turn without pigging out, they get a coin. Whenever a player pigs out they have to return a coin to the middle. If a player rolls double ones, all their coins are returned to the center of the table and they start over with nothing. The first player whose score gets to fifty wins all the coins he or she had accumulated during that game. The other player has to put their coins back into the middle.
SAFETY:
If your opponent insists on playing for toothpicks or matchsticks instead of money, don’t poke your eye out or get a splinter. Otherwise this is a pretty safe game.
KIT
- Dice
- Paper
- Pencil
- Coins or matchsticks [RIVET TIP]: Colored poker chips are a fun addition.
STEPS
- Spend some time practicing rolling the dice, adding the numbers and keeping count of your rolls before you get a one. This is a little study in probability and teaches you not to get greedy. [RIVET TIP]: Don’t get cocky and keep rolling the dice—the more you roll, the more the odds are against you—so take short turns and rack up the scores.
[PROCEDURE – TECH] Use your smart phone, tablet or computer to record some really piggy oinking noises – a group oink should be a good one. Whenever a player rolls a 1 you’ll need to be finger-quick to play the super-oink recording at high volume.
- Invite your relative or friend to play along and supply him or her with paper, pencil and a pair of dice.
- Agree on what to use as forfeits (coins, matches, candy) and make sure you both understand the rules.
- Roll the dice, add the sum and decide whether to continue or let your opponent have a turn.
- Remember to oink if you pig out. If you get double ones, everyone gets to oink as you mark out your score and return your coins.
- Add your scores as you go along and whomever gets to fifty wins and gets to oink loudly in triumph!
EXTENSIONS
- Create your own version of this Freaky Activity and share it with the whole Riveting World on FreakyRivet.com with text, pictures, recordings, video…whatever works for you![PROCEDURE – POST CONTENT]
- If fifty comes too fast in your scoring, play to one hundred or higher as you get better at the game.
- Add more players or more dice.
- Rivet up the fun level by adding a whole range of different animal noises for other scores: moo for a 2, bleat for a 3, roar for a 4 etc [PROCEDURE – TECH] Create a sound clip for each new animal noise.
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At teaching stores and gaming stores you can usually find d10’s, d12’s and d20’s—multisided die that will make gameplay more challenging. These higher value dice will make the scores climb faster so set your goal higher.