The Polar Bears and Ice Holes Game

If your group love a lateral thinking puzzle, polar bears and ice holes is a fun lateral thinking puzzle to sharpen observation skills.

Grab a set of three dice, gather your group in front of you and roll the dice on a flat surface such as a table or even the floor. Staring at the random result, exclaim that you can see X number of ice holes and X number of polar bears.

At this point, it is highly likely that your group will be staring at you with bemused looks. Explain that with each roll of the dice, there will appear a certain number of polar bears and a certain number of ice holes, as defined by the fall of the dice.

That is, there is a secret key to interpret the face of the dice. The primary aim of the game is for each person to accurately report the number of polar bears and ice holes that they can see before them.

Secret key: the centre dot on the top side of any one or more of the dice is an ice hole found on 1, 3 and 5 only, and all other dots are polar bears. For example, if 5 appears, this represents 1 ice hole and 4 polar bears. Or, if you throw a 2, there are no ice holes and 2 polar bears.

Challenge your group to accurately count the number of polar bears and ice holes in each round. Gradually provide more obvious clues with each successive roll until everyone can ‘see’ the polar bears and ice holes represented by the dice.

The topics of this publication: lateral thinking, observation skills