
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)
- Color 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).
Template colour
or B&W
Print friendly version of these instructions.