The Rainbow Road: a life-sized learning game for preschoolers

Rainbow Road: A life-size learning preschool game…this game is a fun, rainbow-themed giant board game to help young kids play, move, and practice alphabet skills. So much fun!After the success I had with the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom alphabet game I created a few weeks ago for Little Man (age 3), I got inspired to make up some more games for him. We’ve been learning about rainbows for Mommy School lately, so I thought it would be fun to make a life-size board game for us to play together.

Enter…The Rainbow Road (Little Man loves “helping” Daddy play Mario Kart, hence the name). It’s loosely based on this table top game from Mom Inspired Life (p.s. – she’s a great resource for toddler and preschool activities), but I made it life-sized and gave it a little more of a rainbow/St. Patrick’s Day flair to go along with our preschool theme. Little Man had so much fun with this one, and I think we’ll leave it up in the basement for awhile so we can play it some more.

The Rainbow Road

(Life-sized Literacy Board Game)

Materials Needed:

• Alphabet floor tiles (you can also DIY some tiles by writing the letters of the alphabet on 26 pieces of construction paper in rainbow colors)
• Printed picture of a rainbow with a pot of gold (I used this one)
• Gold coins (or yellow paper circles, which is what I used)
• A die (dice)
• Yellow stickers

Setup: 

1. Using alphabet floor tiles or lettered papers, lay out a “road” or pathway. Start with “A” and continue in order through the whole alphabet.
2. Place the rainbow at the end of the road (after the letter “Z”), and put three gold coins on the “pot” (on the rainbow picture).
3. Cover the five and six sides on the die with yellow stickers. trim any excess.

How to Play:

1. Have players line up in front of the letter “A”.
2. Players take turns rolling the die and moving accordingly.
   1. If a number is rolled, the players moves the number of spaces shown on the die and then names the letter he/she is standing on. (Note: If your child is younger, you can just tell him the letter. If your child already knows the alphabet, you can also have him/her tell you what sound the letter makes. This is what I did with Little Man. As he gets older, I want to have him also tell me a word that starts with that letter. So many option!)
   2. If a yellow dot is rolled, the player adds a gold coin on the rainbow at the end, and then returns to his/her place on the road. Then, he/she gets to roll again.
3. Players continue rolling and moving along the road until a player reaches the end of the road. The player who reaches the end of the road first gets the gold at the end of the rainbow and wins!
4. You can also play this in rounds, so that you keep track of how much gold the winner gets each round and tally who has the most gold after several rounds.

Note: Another variation would be to have a set amount of “gold” (I’m thinking 12 or so), and set up your rainbow road in a closed square shape (so it looks more like Monopoly). Play would be the same, but the game wouldn’t end when a player reached the pot of gold. It would just be like “passing Go” in Monopoly, and players get to collect any coins in “pot” when they pass by. Players would keep going around and around the board until all the coins have been collected. Then, count up all the gold coins, and whoever has the most is the winner!

Can you think of any other variations that would be fun?

Here’s where I’m linking up.