Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Make A Science Game Board

A board game, particularly those involving science, can be both fun and educational. And it's a fine way to turn a boring lesson into something that students can really grasp.


Instructions


Make your game board.


1. Take your piece of sturdy cardboard and cover it with construction paper. You can choose any color, but keep in mind that you will also need to design it.


2. With markers, crayons and other colors of construction paper, create a path that players will travel. It can be around the board, like in Monopoly, or across it, around in circles, or any way you wish.Determine which aspect of the sciences you will use. A game dealing with the periodic table, for instance, might have the table itself as the path. A science board game dealing with anatomy might have a path through the body.


3. Divide the path into squares, either by using a marker or different squares of construction paper.


4. Decorate the rest of the game board with a theme in mind. A path that goes through the human body should have a body surrounding it. A game that deals with nature and science should be designed in an environmental motif.


5. Create science question cards out of construction paper. The questions should relate to the topic. For instance, they should be about the human body, nature, cells, the periodic table of elements, etc. Write a question on each card. If each person gets a question regardless of what color they land on, put one question on each card. If the questions will be based on the colors on which a player will land, you can put multiple questions on a card--one for each color.


Design Your Game


6. Decide on the rules. The player will role dice and move ahead a certain number of spaces. If a player correctly answers a question, they get to go again. If their answer is incorrect, the next player goes. A person who answered incorrectly on their last turn must get one question right before they can roll and move ahead.


7. Decide if you want any spaces to be "lose-a-turn" or" freebie" spaces, and mark them accordingly.


8. In a classroom, write the rules on the board to make them easy to see. You can incorporate this into your scientific design as well.


9. Decide which tokens and dice will be used. For a game about the human body, small people will work, such as Army or Lego men. For a game about nature, perhaps you'd like to use something from nature. For an animal game, try using small animals.


10. Package everything together so it won't get lost.







Tags: construction paper, human body, about human, about human body, board game