A Game to Improve Numeracy Skills - PLYT

PLYT is a new game that combines the idea of a traditional board game with multiplication.  Using 12 sided die, the aim of the game is to multiply the numbers thrown on two or more of the dice in a race to get to the winner's square.  Chance cards can help or hinder this along the way, adding an extra element to the game.

The game can be played with two to six players of varying ability, by giving each player a different number of dice to multiply together according to their numeracy skills.  If the answer is correct, players move forward the number shown on the master dice which is a different colour to the others.

I attempted this game with 11 year old Kizzy and 4 year old Freddy, but even though the game is suitable for children aged 4 and up, it wasn't suitable for Freddy who had no concept of multiplying anything, nor had any interest in moving pieces around the square board.  He liked throwing the dice into the bowl but that was it.  He's not ready for PLYT yet. Kizzy however was ready to flex her numeracy muscles with some times table practice.

We loved the idea of the twelve sided dice and throwing two of them to randomly select a multiplication from the twelve times table.  (Somehow much more exciting than your standard six sided cubed dice!) But using any further dice made the calculations a bit tricky.  Multiplying 8 x 9 x 12 together was a bit beyond Kizzy without writing it down. This made the game painfully slow and games like this need to be fast paced to keep the children engaged.  So we stuck to the 12x table with the two die approach.

The chance cards saw the play pieces moved up and down levels and gave opponents benefits which added an element of fun and kept it as anyone's game right through to the end.

There are lots of different ways you can use the game to support numeracy skills, but as we only had the game on loan we stuck to the simplest version.  Rolling two dice, answering the multiplication and moving the number thrown on the master dice.  It is simple to follow.

I can see this would be a fabulous resource in schools to develop numeracy, the learning of times tables and the mental maths process in a fun way.  I can imagine it would be a huge benefit in increasing recall speed and mental agility. I'm sure a child's maths would improve through playing this game and school children would love to play a game during their maths' lessons - what a treat!

It would appeal to kids who find maths fun and who want an added mathematical challenge to their board games.  Unfortunately Kizzy found it "a bit like having to do homework"...but that's possibly not a bad thing!

Find out more at www.plyt.co.uk


We were sent this game on loan to try out and return and we received no payment for doing this review.