Fun Summer Activities for Kids: Invent a Board Game

If your kids are getting bored of all of their board games, challenge them to invent new board games to play together. This will get their minds working, and there's a decent chance that they will come up with some fun games. Who knows, maybe they will even invent the next Candy Land or Monopoly.

Invent a Board Game: Supplies Needed

In order to invent board games, your kids will need some basic supplies such as boards, playing pieces, dice, and paper. If you have a lot of games and don't mind them being scattered all over the place, you could raid boxes of games you have. There are a lot of useful colored playing pieces in them, along with dice, boards that your children can repurpose or use the backs, and miscellaneous cards, spinners, and other supplies.

Invent a Board Game: Make a Goal

When your children sit down to make a game, have them first decide how a person will win the game. Is it by getting around to the end of the board? Is it by collecting the most of a certain thing? Is it by being the richest player at the end of 20 minutes? Is it by destroying all of the other players' pieces? Only by first making a goal can your children devise the board, the rules, and the other components.

Invent a Board Game: Design the Game Pieces

Obviously, an important step in inventing a board game is designing all the pieces that will go into playing the game: the board, the parts that the player moves, the cards, and anything else. Having lots of supplies available is essential for this step, which will require many scraps of paper and glue sticks, or markers, or seemingly random elements of your children's choosing.

Invent a Board Game: Write a Rule Book

After the game has been made in its entirety, have each child attempt to write out all the rules of the game. Tell them that the rules should be clear and detailed enough for somebody to pick up a box with the game and the rules in it and figure out exactly how to play it. This might be a challenging task for some kids, but it will help to hone their technical writing skills and precision of language.

Invent a Board Game: Family Game Nights

When each of your children have completed making their individual games, set up family game night times when you can play their games together. Each family game night, have the game designer present the game to the rest of the family and explain how to play it. Then spend some time playing a game or two together. This will make your child who designed the game feel as if it is a valuable contribution, and you can honor that achievement on each child's special game night. And of course, the games can be played at other times as well, but it is just important to make sure that each child has a special night set aside just for his or her special board game.

For more fun summer activities for kids, see the index of all articles, with new activities being added daily!