St. Patrick's Day trail game

Hello!  I'm still here.  This has just been a really busy week.  I am posting a little trail game I made for two children to play.  I actually had this from my previous Montessori teaching gig and just pulled it out.  Below you can see how I've set this up on a tray: gameboard, bowl with game markers and die (marked with 1-3 since the trail is short), two pots to hold the gold, a container for the gold coins.

 

Below you can really see the gameboard close-up.  I just made it with stickers stuck to copy paper and then matted onto green construction paper and laminated.  This time when I pulled the game out and observed some of my students playing it, I realized that they were having a hard time visually interpreting the path made by the shamrock and coin stickers.  So I used a black Sharpie marker to draw black lines between the spaces.  This helps them visually perceive which direction the path is going from start to finish.

 

To play, each child gets an empty black pot and a game marker.  I used clown erasers which I thought loosely resembled leprechauns.  They place the game markers on start and take turns rolling the die to determine how many spaces to move.  If they land on a gold coin space on an exact roll, they get to take a gold coin and place it in their pot.  I told them they could play until one player or both players reached the finish.  Then they count up their coins to determine who collected the most.  My assistant and I modelled this game in front of the whole group.  Each time, my assistant accumulated many more gold coins than I did.  This provided a good opportunity to talk about good sportsmanship and how to handle it if you don't collect the most or finish first.  We talked about playing for enjoyment more than winning.

The photos below show a close-up of the gameboard and one of the pots of gold.

 

 

I really like having these types of games available in the classroom.  Many times two friends want to work together and need activities that facilitate this.  There is so much to be learned from a simple trail game: counting, one-to-one correspondence as they move their game pieces, turn taking, and good sportsmanship.

Comments

[generic viagra]

coins are very interesting objects, from the beginning of time, coins have become an object therefore important in society, I personally like to collect coins, as they are very interesting, from its design to its value

[sunita ahluwalia]

This game is a hit in my classroom.

Posted by:sunita /March 15th 2010

[missy]

Adorable!!!

[dongdong]

That is a cute game. My kids would love to play this.