Fun with Board Games

Today is the first day of my Spring Break and I'm using it to sort through all the board games we haven't played yet this year. I'm making three piles: give away for sure, keep for sure, and test.

Overall, I'm looking to see which ones go in the Board Game closet, which are antique or sentimental or I want to just be for me and Zac, which ones I want to give away, and which games I should take apart but keep the pieces. I have a big stash of extra board games pieces for when we do "Invent Your Own Board Game," which we usually do once a year.

I will also often keep the pieces but change the rules of a board game to make it work better for a classroom setting. Some games are just duds and they don't make them anymore. That's the case with FitzIt by Gamewright (it's also the case sometimes that GREAT games go out of print, and we have some good ones here which can no longer be found).

I really like the pieces to FitzIt. I just didn't like the game play. So here's how we changed it to be The Noun Game. I would use this when we are learning about concrete vs. abstract nouns.

Decide in advance how many rounds you would like to play. Children will take turns being the person who chooses the noun. One noun per round.

To start the round every player is dealt three facedown mystery cards from the deck. It's important that you don't know what they say.

Then the person states a concrete noun. In this example, I said "T. rex."

Each child in the circle (including the person who chooses the noun for that round) turns over and reads aloud the three mystery cards in front of them. If the card describes a T. rex, it is a keeper. If not, set that card aside. The reading aloud is often very funny, as the descriptive cards may be a perfect fit or may have nothing at all to do with the noun in question.

T. rex

In this example, my cards said

Usually unwanted - yes

Existed over 100 years ago - yes

Made with wood - no

So I have two "keepers" that match the noun. Zac then turned over and read his cards. One of his cards said "has wings" which gave us a good laugh. Another said "would explode in a microwave." That was hilarious!

All the cards that match the noun for that round go in the center of the circle. Whoever had the most "keepers" that round wins them all!

(As with other games of this type, if there's a tie those cards would remain in the center of the circle and the person who wins the next round would get the whole kitty.)

The cards you win at the end of the round stay by you, because you'll get a point for each, and the cards that weren't a fit can go back in the box. Pass out three facedown cards to each person and the next noun is announced. At the end of all the rounds, the person with the most cards wins!

This is a just-for-fun game, with the emphasis being on learning what a concrete noun is and practicing reading aloud. There's no strategy involved whatsoever. It's silly and we loved it!

UPDATE:
I played this game with the Bongos when we came back from the break. And it was a hit. Here are some of the things I noticed:

- It works better for the person who chose the noun to not draw cards that round and instead act as the Judge if there are any disputes. For example, is a tree "fluid?" Do you count the sap?

- We did five facedown cards per person so that we didn't have tied rounds as often.

- Have each person flip their stack only when it's their turn to read them aloud. Otherwise children will be reading their own cards and not listening to others and they'll miss the jokes.

- Put your cards that are keepers face up, and the cards that aren't a fit face down, as you sort through them. This makes it easy to keep track.

- This game actually teaches a lot about adverbs too! "Often," "usually," "mostly," "not," etc. These words change the meaning of the phrase and require children to think carefully.

- Lots of giggles! They were in fits for "is considered romantic" for Broccoli! This would be a good icebreaker game for a group that doesn't know each other well yet.

Sometimes we have board games without the original rules. Here are some rules I've been looking up lately:

Nim (PDF)

Towers of Hanoi (PDF)

"Lucky Catch" by Gamewright

"Fairy Queen" by eeBoo

Twixt by 3M

Quartett: Tree, Flower, Fruit, Seed by Senta Stein

Monopoly (PDF)
note that you can buy a Speed Die separately at Amazon or eBay

how to play Backgammon (video)

how to play Backgammon (PDF)
includes a very interesting probability table