This St. Patrick’s Day Path Game will help your preschoolers learn counting and turn-taking skills.
My group needed a change from the usual grid game, so I made this path game for March.
To assemble this game, print out each of the printables (links below). Glue-stick the two path game pages side by side on the inside of the file folder. Cut out and glue the title and directions on the front of the folder, and cut and glue the tab. Print and cut apart the shamrock cards.
To play the game, children will place their game piece on any spot on the path (it doesn’t matter where because the game goes in a circle and does not have a beginning and ending point). For game pieces, I collected four green math counters from different sets: bear, rabbit, dinosaur, beetle. The players choose the one they want to use. Place the stack of shamrock cards beside the game board. You can use one or two dice. Children take turns rolling the dice and moving that amount of spaces. Anytime a player lands on a shamrock, they collect a shamrock card from the stack. (They must land on the shamrock, not just pass it.) Once all of the shamrock cards are gone, the game has ended, and the players may count their cards. I do not encourage them to compare how many they have with other players because with this age group, win/lose games only cause problems. With other age groups, it may be fine.
Depending on your students’ attention spans, you can adjust the number of shamrock cards used. To make the game longer, use more cards; to make the game shorter, use less.
Hope your class enjoys it as much as mine!
Download: St. Patrick’s Path Game
Originally published March 2010
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Perfect for counting practice and fun to play. Thank you for sharing your wonderful idea and hard work. I am printing it off right now and we will be playing this in the week.
I had the idea of going round in a circle after reading the game idea at My Montessori Journey, so this post raised a smile in that we shared an idea (though we don’t do the whole leprechaun thing, I was thinking a pirate them, land on a treasure chest pick a coin…these games are just so adaptable!) Also, the win/lose thing, very tricky with my six year old. Games like these are brilliant http://mama-jenn.blogspot.com/2010/03/racing-racecars-game.html and http://7renfros.blogspot.com/2009/09/v-behaviorurldefaultvml-o.html as no person is the winner. We play them so there is a winner 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th and they have worked a treat. I am excited to make some of my own and I am sure you would have great ideas for your kids 🙂
Sorry, theme, not them 😛 !!
Thanks for the links. I’ve made games very similar to those in the past, but I like how they used numbers. I’ll have to make some like that.
Yes! We also do 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. winners when we play bingo. Everyone wins. The kids don’t care when they win as long as they win at some point & we cheer for them.
I would like to print this game out but for some reason, when it prints, the colored dots around the top, bottom and sides get cut off, so it’s only half circles. Is there a way to edit the game to make it smaller that way all of it will fit on the paper? I’m using regular 8.5 x 11 white card stock paper to print it on. I tried playing around with the layout when trying to print but it still comes out so the circles are cut off.
It printed correctly for me just now. Make sure you are using Adobe Reader when you print. To make sure, you can save it to your computer and then open it in Adobe Reader. If that doesn’t work, you might need to contact tech support from the company that made your printer.
I used the Valentine board and it was a hit with my group of students. I can’t wait to use this shamrock board game with them. I love your website!