Want to give a unique gift to kids that will spark their creative juices and encourage growth mindset? I have the perfect idea for you. A DIY Board Game Kit!
A supply of game parts and pieces can be just the thing to get your gamer kids to put down their screens and focus their energy on creating and playing games offline!
Plus, think how quickly the school holiday will whiz by when your children are hard at work decorating their own game cards, painting pawns and coming up with clever strategies!
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I've also curated all these items, plus more, including "meeples" on an easy to use list over at Amazon. Meeples! Don't you just love that word? Click here to see the guide plus all the extras.
Game Pawns and Tokens
Make pawns out of wooden game dolls or meeples! An inexpensive and colorful paint set will inspire your children to design their own pawns to be used in any game. Perhaps they will paint pawns to represent the family. So cute. Wooden discs that can be painted also come in handy as game tokens. If you've watched any of our game videos, you may have seen our homemade ones.
Card Games
Blank deck of cards. Be sure to include a set of permanent markers. What will they make? A standard deck of 52 cards? A whimsical deck? Maybe they will design a specialized deck for a board game they are inventing! The sky is the limit.
Dice
Multicolored and multi-sided dice. What's more fun that a quick dice game with a standard set of 6-sided dice? Why a self-invented dice game using a 10 sided (or more) set of dice! You can get dice in all shapes and sized to inspire kids to roll away!
Blank dice! Kids can use Sharpies to write numbers, letters or even draw pictures on each side. Alternatively, use stickers to decorate each side.
We love having lots of colored dice so everyone can have their own set during game play. The kids always like having their favorite colors.
Game Boards
Blank Game Boards are essential for creating your own board games, of course!
Game Accessories
Spinners. What I love about these transparent spinners is you can use a dry erase marker to change up how you want to use them.
Chips come in very handy. You can make your own with small wooden discs and paint them the color you want. If you want to get really fancy, a box of poker chips will last forever. My kids love using our poker chips for all sorts of activities, as you've probably seen in our fiverton game.
Play Money will be useful if your child loves games like Monopoly and wants to add a financial element to the game.
Make Your Own Board Game Kits
Maybe you'd rather buy a complete kit to inspire your children to make their own board game. There are several available that look like a lot of fun.
This board game set has everything you need, just add imagination! It includes a board, game pieces, blank cards, dice, spinner, rulebook, and timer!
DIY Board Games. This set is not so much an "invent your own games" but rather a "put together your own games" set. There are five boards with stickers and pieces to assemble to play popular traditional games like Snakes and Ladders and The Great Game of the Goose.
Books
Serious board game enthusiasts can learn from game design masters with this informative book, Make Your Own Board Game: Designing, Building, and Playing an Original Tabletop Game by Jesse Terrance Daniels.
Don't forget to check out the full curated list of items here.
More game gift guides:
Amy says
What an amazing idea! I was struggling with a gift idea for my crafty 9 year old daughter. She loves games. This is genius! Thank you!
Ashley says
I am so excited about this list! My daughter absolutely loves making her own games. I’m getting her just about everything on this list!
Erica says
Wonderful! Happy playing!
Cheryle Katribe says
After reading Jumanji,(the original book) I had my 3rd & 4th grade students research various jungle animals and create their own Jumanji book and game board to go with their book. (From a retired elementary school teacher)