Lucky Dice Shakers

My kids are big fans of board games. They love all the classics like Snakes and Ladders, Monopoly Junior, Ludo plus more. We’ve even made our own game from a cereal box. We’ve also had our fair share of ‘runaway dice’ – aka overly enthusiastic dice-rolling that ends up on the floor half way across the room. Do you get that at your place? Well here is something that solves the problem, we call them Lucky Dice Shakers and they’ve been a big hit here with the girls as well as with myself. You can make one in no time but they do take a day or two to completely dry out.

*disclosure – for your convenience this post contains affiliate links

You Will Need

– A small disposable dip/sauce container intended for lunch boxes – I bought a pack of 6 inexpensively from the Supermarket
– Mod Podge or a DIY version of Mod Podge using water and PVA glue in a 50/50 mix
– Fine glitter
– Dice – one or two depending on what game you want to play with them

How To

Paint the inside of a container (the base but not the lid) with Mod Podge and then sprinkle liberally with glitter. Try and cover the sides and bottom of the container completely. Put the lid of the container on and shake it all around to get the loose glitter to fill up any holes or spaces that you’ve missed, then take the lid off and tip the excess glitter out onto a piece of paper so that you can put it back into the glitter container to use again another day. Now it should have no gaps or patchy holes in the coating of glitter at all, if it does sprinkle a little more glitter into the container and try to patch up the spaces while the mod podge is still wet.

Allow this to dry completely before adding a second coat of Mod Podge to stop the dice from scratching all the sparkle off when it gets shaken around in there. The second layer of Mod Podge will put a rock-solid coating on top of the glitter that won’t come off. Leave it to dry again for 24 hours at least to ensure it is completely dry before putting a clear lid on and handing it over to the kids for play time.

The shaker is perfect for any board games that use dice and the sparkles give it that little bit of extra luck. It also makes a very satisfying noise whenever you shake it and you’ll no longer continuously need to fetch the dice from the other side of the room – hooray!

15 More fun dice games to play with kids

Any game using a dice (or die) is a fun way to help develop basic math skills and the kids don’t even realise they’re learning. Once you’ve made your sparkly lucky dice shaker you might like to try one of these cool DIY games by some of our blogging friends:

1. Make your own Cereal box board game from The Craft Train
2. Try these Early Math games involving dice from Danya Banya
3. Play a game of Monster Match for preschoolers with this free printable from The Measured Mom
4. Try this Count and Move Game with balloons and dice from A Mom with a Lesson Plan
5. Here’s a fun Roll a beetle printable math game from Teach Beside Me
6. This Dice Doubles game by Housing a Forest looks fun
7. Try this Printable Catch a Bug game by Picklebums
8. Kids will love this Roll and Cover Train Dice Game by Craftulate
9. Here is a fun idea for Counting and Subitising using dice by Learning 4 Kids
10. Play this Roll A Lego dice game with free printable by Boy Mama Teacher Mama
11. Learn With Play at Home has a fun bottle top addition game using dice
12. Her is a fun Duplo Tower Game for toddlers using dice by Octavia and Vicky for Learn with Play at Home
13. Try this Printable Sports Grid Game for Preschoolers by Preschool Powol Packets
14. Here is a printable Fractions Bingo Game for older kids by School Time Snippets
15. Little Bins for Little Hands has created this fun Construction Math Game

You can also find lots more playful ideas on our Craft and Play Pinterest board