Remember that post I wrote about our family being board game fiends? Well, my eight year old decided to take that obsession a step further. Blame quarantine, or all those “summer vibes” but she took it upon herself to create her very own board game–from scratch! She even found an old Amazon box to store the board & pieces in. She was fully dedicated, collecting her colored pencils, blank paper, scissors, and of course our collection of Gogo SqueeZ lids the kids are always collecting to “make something”.
I offered to help in any capacity she may need, which was met with a look of, “Nah, but thanks. I got this!” I wish I had had the foresight to sneak in and snap some pics because she came out with the behemoth of games! FOUR sheets of paper carefully taped together so they fold as a true board game would. Once she spread it out, you could see the winding trail of colored squares. She even cut out game cards, y’all! All game cards were carefully stored in a Ziploc
lunch bag and in a separate bag was the collection of Gogo SqeeZ lids. And since only one of the 10 was orange (vs that trademark green) she colored each top to help distinguish each player’s piece.
Her game was fairly simple, you draw a card from the stack & move your piece to the closest corresponding color on the board. But in order to win, you had to draw the exact color of the “End” square. (This rule was stated as I was about to win. So I have my questions as to its legitimacy, but she IS the creator, so I played along.) I went from leading the pack to losing to the 5-year-old. All in all, I was impressed with her creativity
and her ability to plot out both the game and some self-entertainment! We’ve played “Rainbow Squares” a few times since and she’s inspired to create a card game next!
Amazon has a few DIY Board Game Kits and we’re considering ordering one or two to see if maybe she can create a more durable game–maybe even one to go alongside our science or history curriculum. So here’s my challenge, institute a family game night, have some casual fun with the family, then encourage your kid to try their own hand at creating a game! Who knows, they may be the next Kickstarter!
