Grime Dice — Lesson Resources

Grime Dice are an exciting variant of typical dice, with amazing properties, which allow pupils to generate a much deeper understanding of a range of probability topics.

Equipment needed

Scissors and glue/tape to make up cube nets; or, actual Grime dice (available from mathsgear.co.uk in sets of 10 or class sets)

Curriculum Topics Covered

Sample spaces, experimental probability, tree diagrams

Up and down the country pupils are rolling fair six-sided dice and tallying the results to discover that, unsurprisingly, the chance of rolling one of the numbers is 1/6. How this tedious repetitive rolling became a typical way to teach relative frequency remains a mystery as it removes the whole point of experimental probability – that you don’t know the probability of the thing you’re trying to find!

Enter Grime Dice! Grime Dice are an exciting variant of typical dice, with amazing properties, which allow pupils to generate a much deeper understanding of a range of probability topics. You can read more about some of their properties in the included instruction leaflet, or by following the links below.

James Grime, inventor of Grime Dice, talks to Winton Professor of the Public Understanding of Risk, David Spiegelhalter

James Grime’s article in Plus Magazine

Maths Gear video, with Matt Parker and Steve Mould

How to use these resources

These resources have ideas about some of the many ways that Grime Dice can be used to introduce or consolidate ideas in probability. They are designed to be open-ended and cover all abilities and stages, so teachers can select the ideas they want to use from the general lesson plans. The lessons are based on prompting questions, aimed to get the pupils to think their way through the topics. We’ve also included some things teachers from around the UK have developed themselves for using with the Grime Dice, and sent in to us.

Grime Dice, in full and half sets, and class sets with bulk discount, are available to buy from Maths Gear, or there are printable nets included in this set of resources.

Please do email us if you have any queries or comments about this pack of resources. We’d particularly love to hear from you if you find new ways to use these dice!

Overview of resources

Grime Dice Instructions, Dice Nets

Lesson 1 – Relative Frequency (Lesson Plan, Powerpoint)

Lesson 2 – Sample Space Diagrams (Lesson Plan, Powerpoint)

Lesson 3 – Tree Diagrams (Lesson Plan, Powerpoint)

A Level Statistics – Expectation and Further Ideas (Lesson Plan, Powerpoint)

If you have any other questions about buying the dice or about these resources, please email contact@mathsgear.co.uk.