Jazz up your checker set this spring by transforming regular old round checker pieces into baby chicks and eggs. This activity provides a great opportunity to introduce your child to checkers, a game that helps kids learn logical thinking and strategy. And the pieces are just so cute, kids won't want to stop playing.
What You Need:
- Red and black checkerboard
- Full set of black and red checker pieces
- 12 ½-inch black pom-poms
- 12 1-inch black pom-poms
- Yellow pipe-cleaner, cut into 12 small pieces each folded in half
- Miniature googly eyes (you can also use small circles cut out of construction paper or felt for eyes)
- Yellow felt
- 24 1/2-inch sets of velcro circles
- Hot glue gun
- Craft glue
- Scissors
- 12 small plastic Easter eggs
- Red acrylic paint
- Paint brush
- Bottle caps (optional)
- Construction paper in red and black
- Double-sided tape
What You Do:
- Start with the baby chicks. Help your child glue one small pom pom onto a larger one using craft glue to form the baby chick's head and body.
- Repeat step 1 until you have 12 pom pom chicks.
- Help your child glue googly eyes onto the chicks' heads.
- Now add the beaks: using the hot glue gun, attach one bent yellow pipe cleaner segment to each chick's head below the eyes.
- Now it's time to make removeable crowns that you'll use to crown your pieces. Ask your child to cut 12 1/2-inch circles out of the yellow felt for the crowns' bases.
- Now have your child cut 12 rectangles out of the yellow felt. The length of the rectangles should equal the circumference of the felt circles.
- Once all the rectangles are cut out, have your child cut a zig zag pattern into one side of each rectangle so they look like crowns.
- Carefully hot glue the ends of each rectangle together so they form a cylinder, then glue each cylinder to a felt circle.
- Take apart the velcro circles and have your child sort them into two piles, one for the hook pieces (the pokey side) and one for the loop pieces (the soft, furry side).
- Hot glue one "soft" piece to the bottom of each felt crown, and one "pokey" piece to the top of each chick's head. Set aside the rest of the velcro pieces, taking care not to mix the two piles.
- Now you'll make the egg pieces. Help your child apply a few coats of red paint to each egg, then set them aside to dry. You can place them in overturned bottle caps to help them dry without smudging.
- Once the eggs are dry, glue one "pokey" velcro piece to the top of each one.
- Hot glue the chicks to the black checker pieces and the eggs to the red checker pieces. If you don't want to damage your checkers by gluing these playing pieces directly onto them, you can hot glue the chicks and eggs onto round pieces of red and black construction paper, then attach them to the checker pieces using double-sided tape.
Now set up the board and let's play some checkers!
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