Shut the Box
Roll: —Open: 45Best: -
- Category
- Kids
- Players
- 1
- Controls
- Tap
- Numbers
- 1 to 9
- Loads
- Instant
Controls
| Roll | Throw two dice. |
| Tap numbers | Select a combination adding to the total. |
Next up
| Roll | Throw two dice. |
| Tap numbers | Select a combination adding to the total. |
Shut the Box is the pub game with nine numbered flaps. Roll two dice, then close any combination of open numbers that adds up to your total. Keep going until you cannot make the roll, and your score is whatever is still open. Lower is better, and closing everything is a rare thrill.
It is the ideal game for teaching addition without it feeling like practice. A roll of nine can be closed as nine, or four and five, or one and three and five, and finding those combinations quickly is exactly the mental arithmetic schools spend years on.
Close the high numbers first. Nine, eight and seven are the hardest to get rid of late in the game and they cost the most if you are stuck with them.
Prefer one big number to several small ones. Closing the nine directly keeps your small numbers, which are far more flexible for making future totals.
Keep a spread of numbers open. A board with one, two and three left can make almost any low roll, whereas eight and nine alone can only make seventeen.
Talk through the options with a child. Asking which combinations make eleven is the whole educational value, and it is a genuinely enjoyable question.
Select any set of open numbers that adds up to your dice roll.
The total of the numbers still open when you get stuck. Lower is better, and zero means you shut the box.
Rarely. Closing all nine is a genuinely uncommon result.
Very. It is addition practice disguised as a dice game.
Nothing at all. The whole of Shut the Box is built into the page itself, which is why there is no loading bar and no waiting before you can play.