Hacking Board Games for Preschoolers

Although my son has an apparently infinite capacity for playing Candy Land (interspersed only by rounds of Cariboo), I have a limit. I don’t, however, have a limitless budget for buying new games. My solution has been to create variations of older kid/adult board games we already have around the house. Here are a few recent hits:

• No-Rules Scrabble: Lots of options here. Take turns drawing tiles from the bag and identifying the letters. Think of words that begin with those letters. Spell out simple words on the board. Turn on some music and let your child shake the bag to the beat.
• Boggle Babble: Similar to the above, but with the added fun of rolling letter cubes. (Be warned that when children shake the cubes in the Boggle container (and they will), they make an unholy racket. Use the Scrabble bag for any musical endeavors.)
• Train-Track Boggle: Take a large piece of cardboard or paper and draw a “train track” in a big s-curve. Write a random letter in each space between the rails. (Use the Boggle letter frequencies as a rough guide: E-11, T-9, O-7, A-6, I-6, N-6, S-6, H-5, R-5, L-4, D-3, U-3, W-3, Y-3, B-2, C-2, F-2, G-2, M-2, P-2, V-2, J-1, K-1, Qu-1, X-1, Z-1.) At the end of the track, draw a “station” filled with 6-8 different letters. Find some objects to use as game markers (extra chess pawns work well) and place them at the end of the track away from the station.The object is to be the first to reach the station. Take turns picking and rolling one Boggle cube at a time. Move to the next instance of the letter that you roll. (It’s like Candyland with letters instead of colors.) At the end of the game, you can match your roll to any letter in the station.
• Cheesy Parcheesi: The latest Milton Bradley version of the classic game has kid-friendly animal-shaped pawns. Instead of using multiple pawns per player, as in the real version, take one pawn each. Put all pawns on the same starting spot. Roll a die and move the number of spaces shown. The first one around the board (or halfway around) wins.
• Checker Tiddlywinks: See how far you can get them to fly. Try to pop them into cups. (Ignore the frightening rules and terminology of the real game.)

Yes, there are Junior versions of both Boggle and Scrabble, but if you don’t own them, and need a game for a rainy day, try tweaking the full versions.

Keep in mind that many of the small parts of these games may be choking hazards. Don’t use them if your children are too young to keep them out of their mouths.

Anyone else hack board games for kids? Share your ideas in the comments.