Board Game Design
Start your adventure here! Our team of teachers and game designers host creative play sessions specially designed for your kids. We cater to their individual needs and preferences with our wide assortment of immersive games - and our carefully hidden learning goals - so they have the most fun possible while still learning. Even when they don't realize it, especially when they don't realize it, your kids will walk away having developed important skills for the years ahead.
PHASE 1: PLAY
Play comes first. Always. We believe that if kids aren’t having fun, they aren’t learning or growing at their true potential. So each day, we start with play. Kids will be introduced to a new game every few weeks. In board game lingo, it will usually be a medium “weight” game. That’s just a fancy way of saying there’s enough meat on its bones to really dig into, but not so much that it becomes a chore. Our instructors will lead the kids through how the game works, and also guide their exploration of what makes it tick. Every game, every project in life, is the result of countless decisions. Helping children recognize those is key to them dissecting and choosing new ones. This is how we help them into a design thinking mindset, and bring them into the next phase: exploration.
PHASE 2: EXPLORE
Once the kids have a firm grasp on the game, our instructors help them pull it apart. Why did the designer choose dice instead of cards? Would the game play differently on a smaller board? These may seem like small questions. But digging down into small questions is what kids are doing every day. It’s how we learn and grow. But this isn’t a solitary process. The kids need to not only examine the game but also make a strong case to their peers about why one decision might be better than another. Learning how to conduct yourself professionally, supporting your arguments but not overwhelming people, is as important as having good ideas in the first place. Once the kids have reached consensus on what they’d like to see changed, we move into our third phase: design.
PHASE 3: DESIGN
Nothing feels quite so good as seeing your vision made real. That’s true whether you’re a game designer or an architect, a child or an adult. This is the secret sauce. Once kids have figured out what they’d like to see changed in a game, we make those changes. We design a modified version of the game the children have been playing, and then we play it together. They get to see firsthand how their ideas change the play experience, and further explore why that might have been. Learning by doing is our favorite way to learn, and we find that kids agree. It just feels better when you can hold it in your hands at the end of the day.
