DLTK's Crafts for Kids
King Cake Game (Craft)
This is a simple dice board game, but a lot of fun when celebrating Mardi Gras. The real king cake is baked. A small doll is baked
into it and the one who finds the doll becomes king.
Tasha (6 years old) had a lot of fun with this game. They use dice games a lot in school for math.
Don't have dice? No problem! Make some really big dice to go with the game!
I've provided a few alternatives for making this game and a few alternatives for playing this game.
To Make the Game:
TEMPLATE Alternative
- print out the template of choice.
- OPTION: glue the template to a piece of thin cardboard (ex: old cereal box) if you think this is going to be played with
for some time.
- Cut out the template piece.
- if you want making the game to be as quick as possible, just print the color one and you're done at this point (move on to PLAYING THE GAME).
- if you want making the game to be more of a craft project and a bit more educational, choose the black and white option:
- color the squares in a green, purple, yellow pattern.
- You don't have to use the same pattern we did, but you should use all three colors (they're the mardi gras colors)
- In Tasha's grade 1 math lessons, they do a lot of work on patterns. Let the child design a pattern to use when coloring the squares
(ex: 2 green, 2 purple, 1 gold... etc and follow their pattern all the way around the board).
- If you're doing this with a group of children, it's interesting to see all the patterns they come up with using 3 colors.
- Color the word FAITH in green, JUSTICE in purple and POWER in gold. That's what the colors stand for.
NO TEMPLATE Alternative
- Even older children may wish to try this without using the template.
- Use paper plates or circles of thin cardboard.
- An older class (say grade 6) can make some really big game boards as gifts to some of the younger classes to play with.
- Use large pieces of poster board to design the game (use a piece of string anchored in the center of the board to make your circle)
- Paint in the squares with bright poster paints.
- Make some REALLY BIG DICE to go with the game
- Give the game(s) to the school media center (library) or to some of the kindergarten, grade one and grade two classes.
- Let them draw out the game squares (they can try measuring them out, but it's really easier to estimate).
- color or paint the squares in a green, purple, yellow pattern.
- You don't have to use the same pattern we did, but you should use all three colors (they're the mardi gras colors)
- Colour the word FAITH in green, JUSTICE in purple and POWER in gold. That's what the colors stand for.
To Play the Game:
Young Children:
- If you have very young children (my 3 year old, for example) or are playing with a mix of old and young kids, just use one die
(instead of two) and play until someone lands on OR passes the baby.
- It should only take 5 or 6 rolls to get a winner.
- That way you can play many times giving all the children the chance to win
- AND you can easily stop playing when the kids get tired.
Older Children:
- If you're playing with school-aged children, use two dice (so they get to practice adding them up) and play until someone lands on the baby.
- It could take quite a number of rounds around the board until someone rolls the exact number to land on the baby, but with two dice, the
rounds go a lot quicker (you can make it all the way around in just 2 rolls)
- This makes the game a bit more challenging and increases the "suspense"
The Templates!
- Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.
- Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).
Print friendly version of these instructions.
