Generic Board Games - Part 2

Here are some more generic gameboards. See original post on Generic Board Games for explanation on what these are and more on how to use them.

Ocean Treasure

Ocean Treasure

 This easy-to-make gameboard used pictures cut from a children's book. Yes, I do cut books. Check out my blog on that topic. 

Who Wants to be a Millionaire

Who Wants to be a Millionaire

Any skill cards can be used here. Age levels can easily be mixed as each child gets questions from his own selected skill cards. Children may even be reviewing/drilling very different subjects. Check out here how to make and play this fun game.

Oregon Trail

Oregon Trail

This quick and easy-to-make gameboard was created to review a book on ....you guessed it - The Oregon Trail. 

The cute wagon is from bulletin board border strip. The path path is Avery 3/4" brown circle stickers. The special spaces along the path a filefolder label stickers.

I don't know if you are able to read the special spaces, so here are what we chose to put on them. In order that they appear along the path:

Big River - need even number to cross.
Sight Buffalo - lose one turn to hunt.
Indian Attack - lose one turn.
and finally: Oregon Territory.

Animal Mania

Animal Mania

The pictures were again cut from a book. This book was a favorite for cutting animals. It was an old Golden workbook, the kind we would find near grocery check-outs. I still on rare occasions find this at garage sales--often in FREE boxes as all the pages have been done. But the pictures are so nice for games and other projects the children enjoy. 

Notice that the stickers that were once white have changed over all these years, but the game is still a good one. Children always love animal related games, even if we are drilling "boring" multiplication tables. 

Presidents Mat Game

This was one of the easiest games I have ever made.  I bought two Melissa & Doug Presidents Write-a-Mat ($2.99 each at the local teachers store - however, I got a great deal on them as they were going out of business.)

I cut the Presidents apart on one of the mats.

We use the other mat as the playing board. The cut-up cards are placed in a bucket (here we just used a plastic butter tub).

 In turn a player draws one of the cards,

 

 reads the name of the President,

   and finds the match on the playing board.

 He then places one of his colored chip markers on the space.

 SCORING:

 We began thinking that we would play until one player had three in a row. However, I scored three (blue) together quite quickly and we wanted to continue. So we decided to see if it is possible to get 4, 5 or even 6 in a row. We would play until all the cards had been matched.

 Here Douglas (red) scores 4 in a row.

Here is how our final board looked. 

We decided a good scoring would be 3 points for every 3-in-a-row, 4 for each 4-in-a-row, and so on. Douglas ended up the winner by a couple points. 

This is a good game for becoming familiar with the Presidents and their order. It is slow-paced so it allows for comments, questions, and teaching. The winner is simply a matter of the luck of the draw, so the adult has no advantage over a child.

State ID Spin

State ID Spin is a fun way to drill information about the US states!

This gameboard can be used in a variety of ways: (An answer key with the state listed by the number on the map, along with the state name, capital and any other information the players may want to drill is good to have available.)

NOTE: Landing on a red space, loses one turn.

1. Name the State - The first player gives the number of a state shown on the map. The player to his left gives the name of the state. If he is correct, he spins the spinner and moves the indicated number of spaces. He then gives the number of a state he wants the next player to identify. Play continues around the board until one player reaches the end of the path.
2. Name the State 2 - We had a set of cards with the numbers 1-50 on them. In turn, a player drew a card, identified the state or gave the other necessary information. If he was correct, he would spin and move.
3. US Geography Trivia - While we studied the states, my children made question cards for review. We used these cards and played with this board. Players would have a question read to them by another player. If correct, he could spin and move. When we made the cards, the children wrote the answers on the back side of the cards so they could play games like this or do individual review.
4. For 3 or more players - Using a set of State Flash Cards or other cards with the state names on each - Deal out all the cards to players. Players hold the cards so no one can see them. The first player (start with the youngest player) spins the spinner and moves. He then gives the number of a state he does not hold the card to. All players check the map and the cards in their hands. The player with the proper state card shows it, discards it, and it becomes his turn. He spins and moves. He then gets to give the next state number. Play continues until someone reaches FINISH or someone gets rid of all their cards. To keep from having numbers repeated over and over, we kept a list of the numbers (a dry-erase board works great for this) handy and the numbers were erased or crossed off as they were used. For a Variation of this game - Don't bother with the spinning and moving. Just play until one player no longer has any cards.