Five Roll & Colour Butterfly Games
The Components
- Game sheets: The pack should include multiple copies of each of the five games. I think there are two main options here… 1) Collated in a book with pages that easily tear out – spiral bound or perforated edge or 2) In five separate pads, gummed along one side. 20-25 copies of each game is ideal. Sheets can be double sided.
- Two custom dice: Two identical six-sided dice. Five faces contain a number and a colour, the sixth face is wild. The wild face could contain a star or something similar. (It could contain a butterfly, but there’s potential here to have other roll & colour packs with different themes (if this is successful), so it would be smart to think ahead to allow the same dice to be used for any set.
- 5 Pens or pencils: Colouring pencils have a longer shelf-life, are more environmentally friendly and probably cheaper to manufacture. Either would work for the games. While it’s handy if every player has their own set of pencils, it’s totally unnecessary to include them in the pack. You can easily share when you’re playing with multiple players and families will have colours lying around the house anyway.
Game Structure
All the games have the same basic structure. On every round, two custom dice are rolled and each player makes choices about how they use those dice rolls on their own paper. All players play on every round.
Having a consistent structure that applies to all games will help players quickly learn other games after learning the first. It will also help players to switch between games without getting unnecessarily confused about the rules of each one.
The video to the right outlines all the consistencies in game format and structure.
The Games
Now we’ll take a closer look at each game in turn. For each game there’s a ‘how to play’ video, the game-sheet to download and ideas about the educational content.
All game names are working titles only!
Flutterby
Create colonies of five different types of butterfly. Score points for your largest area of each butterfly.
Educational Content: Five butterflies that are predominantly a single colour. Pictures of these five butterflies and more information about them.
Reigning Monarch
Create a technicolour Monarch butterfly, but keep it symmetrical. Gain points for each completed wing and any white spots you have at the end of the game.
Educational Content: Information about the Monarch butterfly.
On the Wing
Create habitats for five different butterflies varieties. Score for each butterfly contained in it’s preferred habitat.
Educational Content: Butterfly habitats in the UK.
Aster Garden
Fill five flowerbeds with asters of different colours to attract butterflies. Score according to the patterns of asters you make in each bed.
Educational Content: Pollination. Flowers that butterflies like.
Swanky Wigglers
Colour caterpillars in stripy patterns, with the aim of getting as many combinations of colours on caterpillars as possible.
Educational Content: The lifecycle of a butterfly.