I've recently decided to start a series of board games meant to drill in the vocabulary included in classic children's stories. I usually have classes of 4-6 kindergartners, and it's always frustrating when board games include only pieces for 2-4 players, thereby nullifying any possible way I could have used them.
My first project was a storybook board game for Little Red Riding Hood. The story has a lot of really useful vocabulary, and is well known throughout the world, so it was a good starting point.
Here is the completed board and pieces:
The Game:
The rules are relatively simple. The objective of the game is to get to Grandma’s house (and instead of counting squares, EFL students are encouraged to say the vocabulary illustrated on the space). If a child lands on a flower space, they lose a turn (since LRRH stopped along the way to pick flowers). However, before the game starts, flowers are lain all across the board like so:
When a child loses a turn, they take a flower of their choosing. The last curve of the board, where the wolf is, is the challenge. If a child lands on the wolf and has a flower, they’re safe. If they don’t have a flower, they have to return to the space with the Woodcutter, since he was the one that saved Little Red Riding Hood in the story. The children really seem to enjoy playing this game, to the point that many children get upset if they don’t collect a flower before getting to the wolf’s side of the board.
It's been a very useful game, both for vocabulary, and getting the children interested in playing fairly. To most of my kids, the point of the game isn't to get to Grandma's house, it's to get a flower so they can cover his image with a flower as they pass him. It's been very fun!