The Craftiest Workshop

I recently had a conversation with a middle school educator about one of the classes she teaches. It is a board game class using games to explore math concepts. I thought it was a great idea as children can learn so much from playing games.

One of my assignments for my Early Childhood Education program was finding board games that were applicable to each age group and focusing in on what developmental skills each game would teach.

When I did a placement shortly after and had to come up with economical resources that would engage the children, I immediately thought of a game we had. The group I had for this placement was a before and after school program ages 6-12. Every day they wanted to play a card game of “Presidents” (more commonly known as A _ _ hole). I knew they liked games so I decided to try to introduce them to Mancala.

I brought in an egg carton for each child and got them to decorate it in any way they wanted. To make it easy to take home, we left on the top and flap that helps it close. The daycare was at a school and the playground had pebbles for its surface. I had the children collect 48 pebbles each.

Here is my example of a filled egg carton sparsely decorated.

I had a bag of these colourful buttons so I just counted out 48; 4 in each of the 12 holes.

Whatever you decide to use, it should be small enough to leave some space in each.

The items do not have to be matching in colour; a mish mash of colours is fine too.

Other easy to find item are marbles or glass beads.

The last thing you need to complete your game is something to collect at either end. You could cut the lid in half and slide each half under the ends.
It would look something like this. To close this egg carton, you would need two elastic bands.

I just grabbed two plastic containers.

Rules

Each person takes a side.

The mancala (container) to your right is yours.

Movement of glass stones goes counter clockwise.

Roll a dice or flip a coin to see who goes first.

On your turn you choose one hole and pick up all the stones in that hole.

Moving counter clockwise, you drop one stone in each hole including your mancala at the end and continuing around to your opponent’s side (if necessary).

If the last stone of those you picked up gets dropped in your container, you get to go again.

You never drop a stone in your opponent’s container.

If your last stone gets dropped in an empty hole on your own side, you get all of the stones in the hole parallel on your opponents side PLUS the stone you dropped in the hole on your own side.

Play continues until one player no longer has any left stones on his/her side.

Any stones left on the other player’s side go into their mancala.

Whoever has the most stones in their container wins.

When you are done playing, put the lid back on the egg carton and secure with an elastic band.

Here is a video I found that you could watch to give you a better idea of the game play.

https://boardgamegeek.com/video/367373/kalah/how-play-mancala

The game is very easy to learn, it is economical and it is engaging.

Make one for yourself and play with a friend.