Making A Life

It rains in Victoria a lot, I am not complaining.  I would rather rain than snow, but it is a little hard for me to take the kids out to play in the rain.  So we play inside, and this is one of the games that I made to keep my five-year old occupied.  Snakes & Ladders is such a simple game to play which introduces numbers up to 100 and counting.

I got the idea from an episode of Steven & Chris and following their instructions I made this giant playing board.  http://www.cbc.ca/stevenandchris/life/diy-snakes-and-ladders

I have copied their instructions below and  changed their instructions a little bit based on my experience making the game.  I had issues opening the PDF’s needed to print the transfer papers on their site so I made my own.

1. Start by purchasing some white iron on transfer paper for white t-shirts from an office supply store and a drop cloth from the hardware store (paint department).  Don’t purchase the generic brand transfer paper, the quality isn’t great and it peals off when playing/walking on the game.  Go for a quality brand, and one meant for canvas bags if you can find it.

2. Next, download snakes and ladders to print file with the game board pieces and print them on your transfer paper; you will need 25 sheets.

3. Trim off the excess colour/squares from the transfer paper using a straight edge and exacto type knife.  Lay the transfer papers out face down.  (download our snakes & ladders template to help you keep organized)  I wrote on the back of each one so that I could tell the order when they were face down.  Layout all of the sheets and measure how large you should cut/hem the drop cloth.

4. Hem the drop cloth.  You might want to layout the transfer papers on the drop cloth at this point to make sure that everything fits.  Measure the center of the drop cloth and start with the transfer paper with numbers 56/55/45/46.

5. Working from the center out iron on your transfer sheets as per their instructions. This process may take two to three minutes per page, but is absolutely worth it!

6. Let cool, and peel back the iron on paper to reveal your game pieces.

7. We purchased snakes from the dollar store and created ladders using dowel and twine (also from the dollar store), but use your imagination here — this is meant to be fun. We use trains or cars as the pieces you play with.

 

Keep playing, creating and counting.