- 5 - 20 mins
- Fine motor, literacy, social and emotional skills. ,
- Minimal mess
- Easy
- Minimal preparation
Kaboom is one of the easiest, most engaging games we’ve introduced in our household. Its quick to prepare, super engaging, simple to play, adaptable to target any learning area, cost effective and most of all FUN for the whole family! Using just paddle pop sticks, a cup, and a fine tip marker you have your self an enriched learning experience.
The aim of the game is simple, each person takes a turn to pull out a paddle pop stick from the cup. Answer correctly, keep the stick, get it wrong and it goes back into the cup. If you get a stick that says “KABOOM” all your collected sticks are put aside. Whoever has the most sticks wins!
What you will need
- Paddle pop sticks
- Fine tip marker
- Cup
Activity steps
Setup
- First, you’ll need to think of a concept or area of learning to target. Our current focus is sight words, so this is the theme we used this time, however in the past we’ve played with letters, numbers, number stories (adding, subtraction)- You can literally use anything!
- Take a paddle pop stick and using your fine tip marker write a sight word at one end of the stick.
- Now take, another stick and write another sight word. Continue with as many sticks as you’d like. We try to limit ours to 20 at a time.
- Now, make some Kaboom sticks! Simple use your marker to write Kaboom on a few sticks- we made 5.
- Put all your sticks face down into the cup and you’re ready to play. Make sure your cup or jar is not see-through. If it is just add a coloured piece of paper to the inside so that players can’t see the content on the sticks and cheat.
How to play:
- First player takes a stick out of the cup.
- Player identifies the answer. If the answer is correct, they keep the stick. If its wrong the stick is returned to the cup.
- Continue with each player going around the circle, pulling out one stick at a time.
- If you get a Kaboom stick, all of your collected sticks are put in a discard pile.
- The player with the most sticks wins!
Learning Opportunities
- Social development- Players participating in this game will engage and practice valuable social skills such as turn taking, sharing, cooperating, as well as have opportunities to appreciate and value group work and plans.
- Emotional development- This game enables children to develop confidence in their own abilities as well as have opportunities to manage and regulate their emotions as they engage and learn about winning and loosing concepts.
- Language- Participants will develop verbal and communication skills by engaging with one another, sharing ideas and supporting one another’s learning.
- Cognitive skills- Playing Kaboom will help players improve memory and cognitive skills. It will increase their processing time, increase attention and concentration.
- Fine motor- Children will engage their fine motor development, hand eye coordination and dexterity when the put the sticks in and out of the container.
Reference sites
We would like to acknowledge these amazing sites that have inspired us to create this activity. Thank you!