Introduction:
One of the greatest challenges of childhood is tackling boredom. And boredom on a rainy day is the pinnacle of hardship for a fussy child. This lesson is a fantastic time filler, not just once, but over and over and over. One rainy day can be spent making a game and many rainy days can be filled playing the game. Talk to your child(ren) about their favorite games. Some board games have definite starting and finishing spots and the object is to beat your opponent to the finish, like Sorry, Parcheesi, or Life. Some games are more about capturing your opponent's pieces, like checkers or chess. Monopoly is about buying property, winning money, and forcing your opponents into bankruptcy. Some games are games of wit, like Trivial pursuit. And some games are just plain fun, like Candyland and Chutes and Ladders. What all these games have in common is that they are played on a board and each player has a playing piece to represent them on the board. Today we will make playing pieces out of polymer clay and design a game board.

Materials:

Directions:
1. First decide what the object of your game will be. For the purposes of teaching this class I recommend that the premise of the game is to reach a finishing point before anyone else. So, start with placing a shape (any shape will do) on the board to be your starting point. Make it big enough to hold as many playing pieces as you make–everyone has to start in that spot.

2. Continue to fill your board with shapes (in a linear fashion) until the board is full. Make the last shape your finishing spot. Along the way, in a few of the squares, have obstacles¸like "Back 3 Spaces" or as in Monopoly "Go to Jail". Also include some squares that advance you extra spaces. Get creative with the game and it will be more fun. Chutes and Ladders has spaces that will send you from close to the end of the game all the way back to the beginning. Some games have spaces that make you lose a turn. All these devices are employed to make the game last longer, which can be especially good on a rainy day.

3. You must also decide how your pieces will advance and in what order you will take turns. The most popular method of advancing is by a roll of a pair of dice. You can also use conventional playing cards or make your own cards. Some games, like checkers can only be played by 2 people and depend on alternating turns. A pair of dice or a deck of cards are probably the easiest to track down.

4. Be sure to decorate the board thoroughly (this takes up lots of bored time too) with colored markers, colored pencils, or paints.

5. Your playing pieces can be representative of the game (as in Monopoly where the playing pieces are mini sculptures), or the same basic shape but different colors. For the purpose of this lesson I recommend you make very simple pieces all the same shape out of different colors of Polymer Clay.

6. Now you are ready to challenge the world!

Resources:
Brown, Osa. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Activity Book. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 1983.

Kato, Donna. The Art of Polymer Clay. Watson Guptill Publications, New York. 1997.

Ford, Steven and Leslie Dierks. Creating With Polymer Clay. Lark Books, North Carolina. 1996.

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