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| Our Dollar Tree Senet Game |
We are just beginning our study of Ancient Egypt, but I've (naturally) been collecting fun projects, games, activities, etc. to enhance our time spent learning about this amazing civilization. One of the main things I wanted to do was have a Senet game for us to play.
I knew we couldn't splurge and purchase one, and I wanted something a bit more sturdy (and attractive) than a simple printout... so I decided to make my own.
Okay, so a D.I.Y. Senet game is not really a novel idea. There are tons of them floating around if you do a simple search. Still, I thought I'd share how I made ours on the cheap.
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We purchased a chess set at the Dollar Tree. I thought it would be a great starting point for the game board, plus we could use the pawns as.. well.. pawns.
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| A white gel pen, a black sharpie and a dollar chess set were our main materials. |
The first thing I did was draw the images on the special squares. I used a white gel pen and a sharpie, but printed images could easily be glued onto the squares. I then cut the board. Since a chess board is 8x8, and I needed 10x3, I first cut an 8x3 strip along with a 2x3 one.
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| The board as it was being decorated and assembled. |
I then glued the entire thing onto a strip of card stock. For the sticks (used to know how many spaces to move the pawns), I simply colored one side of 4 craft sticks red, and the other side black.
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| Our finished Senet board and game sticks. |
Since the rules of the original game have been lost to history, we chose the ones we liked best from a google search and have been having a blast playing!
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Here are some other fun DIY Senet Games I've found:
What Will We Do Today?
This is a rather involved board, but one the kids got to decorate. It looks like so much fun!
Adventures in Mommydom
This one is totally kid-made!
Ancient Egyptian Games
The original link to this one is dead, but I've linked to it on Pinterest. I just want to touch it!
Amazon: Senet Board Game
If you'd love to have one, but would rather not make it.. this one at Amazon looks gorgeous.
Senet Printable
Of course, there is always the printable option, as well.
Oh... and I'm not linking to them, but there are dozens of Senet apps for both Android and Apple products. Once the kids have played the real thing, it might be a fun reward for them to have the app.
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Have you or your children made a Senet game? If so, please give me a link in the comments. I'd love to see it (and add it to the list above).
Linking Up At (when applicable)
Your board looks so great! I love how you made it 'real' by using a chess board (as opposed to another paper to throw away because it got crumpled after using it once...)
ReplyDeleteThank you! We were in the Dollar Tree and I saw the chess game. I told my husband, "I need that!" He was baffled, since Robbie got a new chess set from his grandfather for Christmas. :) It could still be sturdier, but we're happy with it (and it's holding up... so far).
DeleteHuh, I totally thought I'd commented on this earlier, I did add your Senet game into the post, because it's AWESOME. Now I need to double check did I already pin your version or not.... Just in case I'll pin it to my games board.
ReplyDeleteThank you! :)
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