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How to Make a Board Game With Your Preschooler

A board game is practically the definition of "quality time" with a preschooler, but when it's a game you and your preschooler invent together, it can be even more. Put together a basic race-type game board that uses colors to tell players where to move their pieces. As your child learns, you can add letters, first for simple recognition for pre-reading, and later for initial letters of words. Even later you can play by putting letters together to form words, or adding and subtracting numbers in arithmetic problems.

Things You'll Need

2 sheets craft foam, 9 by 12 inches, in each of 6 primary and secondary colors
Scissors
1 sheet white craft foam, 9 by 12 inches
Nontoxic white glue
18-inch square of corrugated cardboard, foamcore or Bristol board
First-aid adhesive tape
Markers

Instructions

- 1
  Cut one square of uniform size from each color of craft foam and set aside for the die. Cut the remaining sheets of colored foam into rough squares or other shapes, each about 2 inches wide at the widest part of the shape. Allow your preschooler to help cut if he can manage the foam; precision shape doesn't matter.
- 2
  Cut a triangle off each of two corners of the white foam, about 5 inches on the widest sides. Show your child, as you glue one triangle in each of two opposite corners of the cardboard, that one will be the starting point for the race, and the other the goal.
- 3
  Ask your child to choose one of the colored pieces you have cut. Help her to apply glue to one side of the piece and place it near one of the white triangles to begin the game path. Work together to place additional colored pieces in a winding path and a mix of colors, ending at the other triangle.
- 4
  Cut the shape of a small "t" made of six squares from white foam to build the die. Each square should be 1/4 inch larger in each direction than the uniform squares you cut in Step 1. With your child's help, glue one of those colored squares on each section of the white t. When the glue is dry, carefully crease the foam between color squares. Turn the t over and fold up the cross pieces to form a box. Seal each corner of the box with a piece of first-aid tape. Bend the last square over to meet the four "walls" and fasten it with tape.
- 5
  Cut two triangles from white foam, each 1 1/2 inches across the short side and 3 inches from that side to the tip. Cut two small squares, 1 1/2 inches on each side. Decorate or label one triangle for each player. Cut slits 3/4 inches long in the middle of the short side of each triangle and in one side of each square. Fit the slits together to help the markers stand.
- 6
  Play the game: Each player in turn rolls the die and moves his marker to the next patch along the path of the color that shows on the top of the die. The first player to reach the second triangle wins.

Board Games