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. 

Books I Will Use to Make Games

I went through my cutting box and found some great books in there. Here are three books that will make some fun learning games. 


BOOK 1:

This is one I found in a FREE box at a garage. Because all of the stickers have been already placed on the fold-out mural I assume the people felt it was no longer of value. But, I assure you, I quickly grabbed it!

 

The stickers are reusable so I will be able to remove them from the mural.

The back of each section of the mural has a picture of the animal and a brief bit of information that I may be able to use as I create a game using this book. Also thinking I may copy this information and picture and put it on game cards. Purpose??? Not sure yet.










BOOK 2:

Not sure where I got this one, but likely a garage sale. This is loaded with wonderful pictures and tons of information. 

As you can see the pictures are bright and colorful and all the birds are clearly identified. There are several pages similar to this one.

This page of pictures of the eggs of different birds should make an interesting addition to a game. A possibility I think of as I type is these could be used as the spaces on a board game. 

This awesome page with the sketches of the beaks/bills and feet of different types of birds will be a great addition to a game. It actually could be two different sorting type games.  We could use pictures from the book on cards and sort into pockets according to the beak/bill or feet. These kinds of activities get the children thinking. It is less about "right" answers and more about having them use their eyes and reasoning skills. 












Book 3:  

This book also has reusable stickers which will make some nice addition to game boards or cards.

As you can see, the layouts are awesome! There are ones for several different habitats. I will probably use these as the game boards.  I will simply mount them on the file folders to make them more durable. 

I hope this gives a bit of an idea of why I collect books to put into my cutting box. These books will be played with over and over once they become games and they will provide much learning fun.  

Walk, Swim, Fly, or Hop

A game for the little ones to take a look at the way animals move.

The Game Board:

I usually use colored file folders to make games more attractive, but we need to remember that manila is a color too. In this case it seemed to be exactly the right color to set off the green stickers and the animal pictures.

THE PATH: Using 3/4" green stickers I created a path. I used pictures cut from some animal books to decorate the board. CUT A BOOK? Yes, I do cut books. I will tell all about cutting books in a future post. 

On the spaces are the letters W, S, F, or H. They, of course, stand for Walk, Swim, Fly, or Hop. 

Here is a close-up of the path:

The Cards:

More pictures CUT FROM BOOKS. 

After the pictures are cut and pasted on the cards, I cover the cards with clear Contact paper. Laminating would be good if you have one available.

To Play:

The animal cards are shuffled and placed in a draw pile.

Each player places a game piece at the beginning of the path. 

In turn, players draw a card, name the animal and then decide how that animal normally moves. He then places his game piece on the next space with the letter that begins the word that describes how his animal moves.

This is a good game to introduce children to new animals. Letting them see the pictures and figure out how the animal moves.