DIY Board Games for Kids
June 26, 2015 in All Posts, Kindergarten, Kindergarten Craft, Play, Preschool, Preschool Craft, Sponsored Posts
Hooray for vacation and stay at home days! Well, except for those days when the weather is too hot or too cold to get outside and run off all the extra energy from being cooped up. Even though we rotate toys - I hide stuffed animals in the attic and store birthday and holiday gifts in the garage just for occasions like this - days spent indoors can still seem interminably long. Kid-made board games are the perfect “boardom” buster!
Homemade Board Games for Kids
The great thing about this activity is that it is completely open-ended and your child is in the driver’s seat in terms of design, creation, and game play.
Materials
- Elmer’s foam board or chalkboard foam board
- Paper
- Markers
- Elmer’s School Glue
- Scissors
- X-Acto knife
- Ruler
How To Make Your Own Board Games
Our board game was designed to get the kids moving and bring about smiles, so our rules were not complicated. Simply pick a tile, act out the tile, and move one space.
In terms of design, I used an X-Acto knife to cut out squares of foam board and let the children decorate the tiles themselves. My kindergartner tried her hand at making square grids with a ruler and marker and cut them out herself. My pre-kinder focused his efforts on decorating tiles.
In the end, we actually made three different games: a travel-sized Tic Tac Toe game (my daughter’s idea), a Memory matching game (my son’s idea), and our “Find the Fun!” board game:
Step 1
Cut out your foam tile game pieces and corresponding paper tiles.
Step 2
Decorate your paper tiles and glue them to the foam tiles. (We used Elmer’s Painters Markers).
You could decorate the foam tiles directly, but we liked extending the activity to add making grids, using scissors, and gluing, for extra fun - and fine motor practice!
Step 3
Create your game board and play!
Need more fun ideas for your family over summer or winter break? Sign up for Elmer’s Parents Club and receive your free Summer Craft E-Book download! Get activities for “I’m bored” days and great tips for hassle-free crafting, guaranteed bonding, and ideas for creating lasting childhood memories.
If you’re on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, remember to tag your favorite summer moments you’ve captured with #ElmersSummerCrafts!
Here are a few more of our favorite boredom busters:
- 30 Active Indoor Activities for Kids (perfect for rainy days and summer heat)
- Rainy Day Popcorn Party (with DIY popcorn cones tutorial)
- 8 Indoor Hopscotch Activities (get the kids moving and learning, too!)
And if you need even more ways to prevent summer slide and keep your children - and yourself - engaged until school starts again, check out:
- our series on The ABCs of Raising a Thinking Child,
- my favorite Top Ten Ways to Keep Kids Curious,
- and our Top Ten Ways to Keep Kids Thinking over summer break.
Keep #RaisingThinkingKids and have fun!
Disclaimer: I’m thrilled to be collaborating with Elmer’s to share our easy activities and crafty inspiration for busy moms and families like ours who want to spend more time unplugging and reconnecting. We receive lots of glittery goodies as part of this relationship, but as always, all opinions are our own.
Parents and friends: for more ideas, activities, and inspiration for #RaisingThinkingKids, click on an icon below to join us on Facebook, Pinterest, Google+ and Twitter.
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Chrissy – who has written 426 posts on The Outlaw Mom® Blog - Creative Living in a Conventional World.
Gorgeous! Hope you’re having a great summer!!!!