My daughter and I were flipping through her National Geographic Little Kids magazine when we came across a fun board game. It’s very simple—a winding road, much like Candy Land—where each square lists an activity to do. To play, you can simply roll a die (or flip a coin) to take turns with a friend, and then follow the instructions.

Some of the instructions read things like clapping as loud as you can, hugging a friend, or drawing a sand castle. Fun, right? I got to thinking that A. this board game looks super easy to make and B. wouldn’t it be fun to make our own board game like this one?

I have a ton of ideas that we’re going to try over the holiday weekend. Here are a few themes that I thought about:

• Letter Activities (Draw letter A smiling; say three words that start with letter B)
• Number Activities (Count to 20 as fast as you can, hop on one leg three times)
• Personal Awareness (Whisper your favorite animal, say two things that you love about yourself)
• Physical Activities (Do a forward roll, spin in a circle)
• Musical Activities (“Sing Mary Had a Little Lamb,” hum “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”)
• Family Game (Guess your Dad’s favorite color, what animal does Mom like best?)
• Wacky Activities (Find three blue things in 20 seconds, roll up your neighbor in a blanket like a taco)
• Kids’ Choice (Tell your Mom to make the sound of your favorite animal, give your Dad a silly nickname)

I can’t wait to begin. I plan on taping two sheets of construction paper together, though if we make several games, I think we could probably fit each one on its own construction sheet. I’ll have my daughter help me make the road, and let her color the squares in alternating light colors once I mark the activities in them with a marker. The Nat Geo game has lots of illustrations, so I’ll either let her draw some or cut out pictures to paste on, too—whichever she prefers.

This will make a perfect rainy day activity for the summer, as well as one we could possibly do (modified) on long car rides. We could make these gifts for our friends, as well. As a bonus, we’ll have a new game to play on Family Game Night next weekend as well!