Make Your Own Checkers Game

I decided to make my kids a checkers game. It wasn't that they had been asking for one or anything, but I had the brainstorm that they might enjoy it. Both making it and playing with it afterwards.

I made a trip to the dollar store to find supplies for our craft project:



It's just some foam-core poster board, some pages of craft foam, and tea candle holders. You could use regular poster board, cardboard, or any other flat surface for your game board. You could also use construction paper instead of craft foam for the squares or just draw the squares on your board and color them in with crayon or marker.

To get started, I let the kids pick two colors for the checkerboard. They chose red and blue. A checkboard is 8 rows of 8 squares each. So I cut out 32 red squares and 32 blue squares. It doesn't matter what size you make them, as long as they are all the same size and they all fit onto your game board.

Next, glue the squares onto your board in a traditional checkerboard pattern. The kids really liked this part... they were a little TOO enthusiastic with the glue. Thank goodness for the wood floors instead of carpet - it made the spills easier to clean up.

I use the tea-candle holders for my checkers. I cut out circles of foam (letting the kids pick the colors again) and glued them to the holders. Here's the final product:

All told, I spent $12 on supplies, a few hours on the project (including glue-drying time), and had fun with my kids in the process. They have had fun playing with the checkers game, too - even if they are making up their own rules!

So that worked for me. Check out the Works for Me Wednesday blog carnival at We Are That Family to see what's working for others!