How to Make Wooden Car Games

Long car trips can often make adults restless and kids whiny. However, there are games to occupy your time while traveling that don't involve batteries or wearing headphones in order to share quality time. Keeping the construction of the wooden pieces simple allows for more creativity -- you and your children can paint any additional details. A fairly simple project, your pieces and boards can be done in a day.

Things You'll Need

• 10 x 10 inch square board
• Tape measure
• Pencil
• Paint
• 1-inch diameter dowel rod, 3 feet long
• Handsaw or circular saw
• Sand paper

Instructions

1. Measure and mark a 1-inch border on all sides of the square board. Inside the border line, mark a 1-inch grid vertically and horizontally. This will give you the guidelines for painting, and supplies both a checkers and chess board in one. Use two colors when painting (one dark and the other light), or only use a light color and let the natural wood coloring show through as the dark.

2. Cut slices from the dowel rod each approximately ½ inch thick. Cut 32 pieces total. Smooth the edges with sandpaper. Paint 16 of the pieces one color, and the other 16 pieces a different color. These will work as your checker pieces.

3. Make chess pieces by cutting an additional 32 pieces; 16 pieces for each side. Paint something recognizable on the pieces so you will know which character is which. This can be done by using initials, such as painting a Q on the piece representing the queen, or get creative and paint some other symbol such as a crown, dress, or necklace. For each set of 16 pieces you will need eight pawns, two rooks, two knights, two bishops, one queen, and one king.

4. 

   Create a Parcheesi board by flipping the checkers/chess board over. Measure, mark, and paint the board appropriately for Parcheesi. Cut four more dowel rod pieces and paint each a different color to correspond with the colors chosen for Parcheesi; typically red, blue, yellow, and green.

Tips & Warnings

• Use small detailing brushes to really get involved with painting the chess pieces. Be as creative as you want to be in the 1-inch-diameter space. Find or make a small fabric bag to keep the pieces in one place in the car when you aren't playing the games.

• Consider adding non-skid, self-adhesive dots to the underside of your pieces to keep them from sliding if the car suddenly stops or turns sharply.

Resources

• Instructions for how to play your games (in case you don't remember)