Cardboard Game-Board Town

You will need

• Large cardboard boxesTwo flattened; clean food or household-goods boxes only — wipe the inside surface

  Use boxes that held food or household goods, not chemicals; wipe surfaces before use and recycle when the board wears out.

• Washable markersSeveral colors; wide-tip if available
• Masking tape or painter's tapeFor grid lines if markers bleed on cardboard
• Hardcover bookAny book — used as a square template for hopscotch grid
• Ruler or straightedgeA long hardcover book also works as a guide
• ScissorsAdult handles cutting the box to size

  Adult cuts the cardboard to size; child uses scissors only on paper edges, not on double-wall cardboard.

• Small stones or buttonsoptionalOptional; used as the hopscotch marker; two per player
• Scrap paperoptionalOptional; for making X and O tokens for tic-tac-toe

Steps

1. 1

   Cut and prep the board

   Flatten your cardboard boxes and trim them to a large rectangle — roughly the size of a yoga mat or bigger. Stack two layers and tape the edges together with masking tape so the board is stiff enough to lie flat on the floor without curling.

   Tip: Use a long piece of tape along all four edges; it also gives the board a neater look.

2. 2

   Draw the hopscotch grid

   On one face, have your child trace around a hardcover book to make the first square near the bottom edge. Continue up — single square, then two side by side, alternating — for eight to ten spaces total. Number each space. Say: 'This is your court. You make the rules about how big each square is.'

3. 3

   Decorate the hopscotch side

   Let your child color each numbered square in a different color or pattern. This is unhurried time — there is no right way to decorate it. The only rule you enforce is that the numbers stay readable.

4. 4

   Flip and draw tic-tac-toe

   Turn the board over. Use a ruler or book edge and a marker to draw two horizontal and two vertical lines to make a nine-square grid — about the size of a sheet of notebook paper, centered. Ask your child to make the lines as steady as they can. Imperfect is fine.

5. 5

   Make the playing tokens

   Tear off two small squares of scrap paper each; write X on one set and O on another. Alternatively, use a small stone or button as the hopscotch toss marker. Tell your child: 'People have been playing these two games for a very long time — now you have your own court.'

6. 6

   Play both games

   For hopscotch indoors: toss the marker onto a square, hop through all squares on one foot except the marked one, turn around, and hop back — pick up the marker on the way. For tic-tac-toe, flip the board and play with the paper tokens. Rotate who goes first each round.

   Tip: Tape the board to the floor with a small loop of masking tape if it slides on hard floors.

7. 7

   Store or display the board

   When play is done, slide the board under a bed or behind a sofa. If your child wants, they can add more decoration between sessions. Point out that every hopscotch court they will ever play on is basically this same pattern they drew today.

Take it to the table

Materials checklist, the steps and the variations on one Letter page.