School-Age Special Event: Giant Board Game

Our special event for February was a Giant Board Game. I took bits a pieces from board games and field-day activities and made a fun Ms. Allison version of a board game. 

1. Craft
Since the entire program was a board game the first thing I had attendees do, as they showed up, was begin making their game pieces. I bought Edushape Educolor blocks from Amazon. They were a variety of different colors and shapes, and were made out of foam. They were perfect for the kids to color and add stickers to, to make game pieces. The only thing I asked them to do as they came to the program was put their name on it so everyone would know which game piece was theirs when we began playing the game. 

Here are two examples myself and a teen helper made:

2. Discussion

As soon as the kids began finishing their game pieces, I had them sit on the outside of the game tiles I had laid out. I had created game tiles that had different activities on them and had my teens tape them to the floor in our program area. I wanted the kids to gather on the outside of it so as to not rip the tiles off of the floor.

Once most of the kids had finished, I began explaining Ms. Allison's game board. I had different activities they had to do if they landed on them. I explained some of the activities and then discussed a brief history of board games. Using some information from the juvenile nonfiction book "Games: Learn to Play, Play to Win" by Daniel King, I discussed how long board games had been around.

Then we began playing the board game. I began in order of who showed up to the program first to create an order who goes first. 

3. Board Game

I had one die that each player got to toss on their turn. Here are some pictures of the die we used at the program:

The die only had the number 1 thru 3 on it, and 'Lose a Turn'. 

3a. Game Tiles

Each of the tiles had something written on it. Some had activities like 'Do 10 Jumping Jacks' or 'Trade Places With Another Player'. 

All together, we had 20 tiles including the start and the finish. We had several free spaces, some tiles asking them to 'Roll Again', and some activities that required 2 or more players to play against each other. 

3b. Tile Activity: Spoon Egg Race

I used 3 plastic spoons we had already on-hand, as well as 3 shaker eggs we have as part of our storytime programming materials. I taped start lines and had participants go around an obstacle walking and return. If someone landed on this tile, they chose 2 other players to compete against. Whichever player won the egg race got to move 4 spaces.

3b. Tile Activity: Ring Toss

I saw a craft online where someone created a ring toss out of a paper towel roll and a paper plate. Then they used paper plates as the rings. I painted mine after I glued mine together.

If a player landed on a tile that asked them to do the ring toss, they got to move as many spaces as rings that they looped around the paper towel rod. This was harder than it looked even with the starting tape line being fairly close to the paper towel rod. The paper plates have quite a curve to them when you throw them like a Frisbee!

3c. Tile Activity: Coin Toss

One of the activities was a coin toss. I made the cans for the coin toss out of three empty vegetable cans. I wrapped them with scrap-booking paper and then used a few quarters to have as the coin toss. We also taped a line down for players to stand at in order to try to toss the coin into one of the cans.

This is one of the activities we did not get to. It was one of the last tiles and sadly no one ended up getting that far in our giant board game.

3d. Tile Activity: Staring Contest

I placed two of our chairs off to the side. If a player landed on this tile they had to choose another player to have a staring contest with. I think this ended up being on of my favorite activities because one of our pre-K attendees chose her big brother who was probably in 3rd or 4th grade. She just sat there making faces and ended up winning because he couldn't help laughing. 

Notes:

So this was a lot of fun! I really enjoyed it, however, I feel like I should have found something for the players to do quietly on the sidelines. Some of our more wiggly members were having difficulty sitting still the entire time while we played the game, which went on about 45 or so minutes. With about 14-16 players, it took awhile to get to everybody's turn - not everyone was so patient!

We also did not get through the entire game. I think if I decide to bring this special event back in the future I may add more fun activities and less of the game tiles. The kids had fun cheering on the other participants when they were doing spoon egg races or staring contests, but found it difficult to sit still when watching everyone else take their turns. I did add a positive twist when we had to end after the hour was up mentioning that, like any good game of Monopoly, our game had to end before we had actually finished as well.

Otherwise, it was a fun and successful program with over 25 people here on a sunny and GORGEOUS afternoon!