Sanity Saver: Mancala Craft

By: Will Kawalec
Lead educator

Presented by BankOnBuffalo

In this lesson we will learning and creating the game of Mancala. Mancala was created in Africa around 1300 years ago! It is one of the world’s oldest known games. It came to America in the minds of enslaved African slaves and immigrants, and is still played today!

Download a printable PDF of this lesson here!

Materials:

Game instruction sheet.
48 of the same pieces, anything can be used marbles, stones, candies, coins, or whatever you decide!
Egg carton
Scissors
Glue (hot glue preferred)

Length:

Set up: 2 Minutes
Creating Game Board: 3-5 minutes
Gameplay: 10-20 minutes

Academic Subject(s):

Art
VA: CR 1.2. 1,2,3a
VA: PR 5. 1,2,3a
Social Studies
K.3a, b, 1.1b, c, 1.2a, 2.2b, 3.4a, 3.8a
This lesson supports Kindergarten to Fourth Grade:
This lesson supports areas of Elementary Education.

This is not only a fun craft, but an educational one, parents, teachers, or caregivers, can not only facilitate this project as an art craft but also use it to inform children about games, sportsmanship, and rule-following. As
well as giving them some background on this game!

Directions for Game Creation:

Step 1: take your egg carton and cut off the flap with scissors.
Step 2: cut the top into thirds (you can toss the middle portion)
Step 3: glue the cut pieces to the base of the egg holder portion, this step should create two ‘baskets’ at the
end of the carton.
Step 4: place 4 game pieces in each of the holes, while none in the ‘baskets.’
Step 5: read the instructions and play Mancala!

Vocabulary Words

Board Game: any game played on a board, especially one that involves the movement of pieces on the board.
Instructions: detailed information telling how something should be done, in this case playing Mancala.

For more Sanity Savers click here!

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