Do you love a good family game night? We do at our house. So we are always looking for a game the whole family can love.
Enter TENZI!
Have you ever heard of it? It’s a fun dice game where there is always a new way (or old favorite way) to play. The more dice you have, the more ways to play. And though you, by no means, need the 77 Ways to Play Tenzi card deck, I highly recommend them.
So how do you play? Is the suspense getting to you? The answer — Is there any way NOT to play? That’s the fun to it – Tenzi allow you to play almost any way imaginable.
The Tenzi game itself comes with 40 dice (10 of each of four different colors) and are available in a variety of colors. We have 80 dice but can easily play with 40. Colors include pink, purple, green, orange, blue, white, and red, to name a few. The original Tenzi game is played by each player rolling 10 dice, choosing a number to work for (typically the number the player rolled the most of) and then re-rolling the dice until all the dice match, which is getting a Tenzi.
But there are so many ways to play. The 77 Ways to Play Tenzi card deck is sold separately and brings additional games, some you would never think of, to life. The 77 Ways to Play Tenzi card deck does not come with dice.
There are basically 3 types of Tenzi games – fun games (non speed), pattern games, and score keeping games. The pattern games are made so that you arrange the dice to march the card (like logic or puzzle games) and these work on thinking, spatial relations, and are typically non-competitive.
The fun, non-speed games include games like Farmzi, where you makes a sound like your favorite barnyard animal after each roll or Guesszi, where each player guesses how many rolls it will take to get to Tenzi and whoever is closest wins.
Score keeping games include games like Sixty-fourzi where the first player to get six 4’s and four 6’s wins or Fifteenzi, where you roll 5 dice but avoid a total of 15 or you lose. Of course, you really don’t have to keep score here either if you don’t want to. The games are limitless.
But really, you can decide, because you can play any way you want. Have a toddler or preschooler learning their colors? Assign a color to each player and take turns rolling (because, seriously, what child doesn’t love to roll the dice) and each child grabs their color of rice and then rolls again. Roll in groups so not too many are rolled at a time. you don’t have to have a winner, just roll and have fun sorting colors.
Working on your number recognition? Each child picks a number and whoever has the most dice with that number gets to roll next. Collect all your numbers and win.
Do you have students that need to practice addition or multiplication? have them roll their dice and find combinations of addition or multiplication with their numbers. I love this because you can have each student work differently while playing the same game. Or give them 5 dice of one number and 5 dice of another number and tell them to come up with a number and then roll until they have it. Math practice with fun, colorful dice.
But what if you just want to play a family game and not have the kids running through math facts. Tenzi is STILL for you. There are just a million ways you can play with Tenzi dice. How about Piratzi or Team Tenzi or Stealzi, which are just for fun and, with a lot of dice, a lot of people can play, making it a fun game for a big family or when you have friends over. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a game all your guests can play? They can with Tenzi!
Tenzi is rated for ages 7 and up (2nd grade and up) and are a component of the Timberdoodle’s 2016 Second-Grade Curriculum Kit!
Be sure to check out Tenzi and the rest of the Timberdoodle award-winning educational games and curriculum by visiting their website or check them out on Facebook, Instagram, Google+, and Twitter.
Have you and your family played Tenzi? What is your favorite way to play?

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