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.

Road to the White House - an older edition

Here is a picture of an older edition of a game to drill the order of the Presidents. 

On this gameboard I used a set of stickers that I got from the local teacher's store. However, not all the Presidents were in the set. So I used some labels with just the names of the missing Presidents.

Check out the previous post for ways to use the board.

Road to the White House

This game is a little out of date as the board has George W. Bush as the most recent President. That is the problem with a board like this, it does become obsolete.However, I did find some little pictures of the Presidents at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States

I tried right clicking, save image and pasted it in Word Pad. It seems it will work. I will probably print off Obama and add him to my board. But you could probably print off all of the Presidents. It looks like it would be a nice small picture, and they would all be the same size. I believe the pictures I used were cut from a book.

To Make: This is probably pretty obvious from the picture, but I will explain it anyway. Using a colored file folder make a path of stickers and President pictures from a START space to a FINISH space. I happened to find the nice little picture of the White House and thought that made an appropriate ending space.

To Play: In turn, players shake a die and move the indicated number of spaces. For a longer game and more drill on the order of the Presidents, I would use a die with only the numbers 1, 2, and 3.  If you do not have a die like this, a spinner could be made. However, a standard die would work.

Once a player has reached the first President space, he must name all the Presidents, in order, up to the space he is currently on before he can shake the die.  If the player can say all the Presidents up to his current location without looking at the gameboard, he may move DOUBLE the shake on the die;  If he is unable to name them in this manner, he may look at the gameboard and name them.  He then moves only the number of spaces indicated by the shake.

The first player to reach the White House is the winner. However, each player is learning the order of the Presidents and in this way all players are truly winners.

VARIATION:  If you have some Presidential flash cards you could drill the order in another manner. In turn, a player would draw a card and name the President. But to earn a shake of the die he would have to name the President that came after the one on the card. The shake could be done the same as above. If he knows the answer he can move double the shake. If he has to look at the game board to find the answer, he moves only the number indicated.

ANOTHER USE OF THE FLASH CARDS: A player would draw a card and name the President. The player to his left would have to give the agreed upon response (Name the following President, Name this President's VP, or other type of information provided on the cards - for very knowledgeable players, he may be asked a question from the card's information.) Then, the second player would be able to shake and move.