Homemade Children's Board Games

How To Make Tic-Tac-Toe

• 1

  Mark up the cardboard into a 6-inch square, then cut it to size. Glue the Popsicle sticks onto the cardboard base so they form a tic-tac-toe grid. The Popsicle sticks make a raised grid in which to place the game pieces, holding them in place during play so that the game can be played during a car journey.

• 2

  Draw five circles on a sheet of colored paper and five squares on a differently colored sheet. Cut these out to create the different game pieces for each player.

• 3

  Personalize the game pieces by coloring them with stripes, swirls or spots of different colors. The game could be further personalized by cutting out small pictures of cartoon or action characters and gluing them onto the game pieces, or by using glitter and beads for embellishments.

How To Make Dice Board Games

• 4

  Cut a large square of cardboard, about 12 inches or larger. Draw a wiggly line, in the rough shape of the letter S or Z, so that it starts in the top left corner and ends in the bottom right corner.

• 5

  Cut lots of small squares from colored craft paper. It doesn't matter if they are not all exactly the same size, but you need enough to cover the length of the wiggly line. Glue the paper squares along the line on the cardboard so they form a multicolored path for the game pieces to land on and move along. Write 'start' at the beginning of the path, and 'end' or 'home' on the last square.

• 6

  Cut a few larger rectangles from the cardboard and write instructions such as, "Move forward two places" or "Miss a turn." You can get creative with the instructions and let children think up as many as possible for themselves.

• 7

  Cut as many small circles as there are players to form the game pieces or markers. This game can be played by any number of people.

• 8

  To play, each person takes turns to roll the dice. Beginning at the "start" square of the colored wiggly path, the game piece is moved along the squares by whatever number the dice shows. After each turn the player chooses one of the "instruction" cards and either moves forwards, backwards or stays where they are. The first player to reach the "home" square wins.