Even Steven’s Odd Game was introduced to me by a friend who is a 3rd grade teacher. She commented on one of my Instagram game posts and asked if I had ever played it. I had heard of the Even Steven and Odd Todd book, but had no idea there was a game! My friend told me she had adapted the rules for whole class play and it was a student favorite; she said that my small groups would love it!
I ordered it from Amazon pretty much right away and tried it out with several groups of students ranging from 3rd-8th grade. I can verify that it is a student favorite! The kids now request to play it.
Up to 4 players can play with the provided dice and frames. However, you can easily play with more kids by giving each child three white dice and three colored dice. The frames are not at all necessary.
How to Play
You will turn over a challenge card. (My friend who plays with a whole class at once uses her document camera to display the card.) Students race to be the first to complete the challenge using all six of their dice. The game has 40 total challenge cards. Some are simple, like roll all sixes. Others require a little mathematical thinking, like all dice are even numbers. Others require more thinking like “white dice add to 12, colored dice add to 5.” Many are patterns like 1, 3, 5 colored and 2, 4, 6 white.
When you have completed the challenge you can grab the Steven figure! That player then gets to keep the challenge card. At the end of the game, whoever has the most cards wins. My students absolutely love this and get very competitive.
