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Carcassone for kids
We’ve started playing games on Fridays, and one of our big hits is Carcassone, we’ve made some adaptions to it so it’s playable by kids, so I now call it: {affiliate link} Carcassonne for kids.
I mentioned buying Math Gym a month or so ago, and how much we enjoy that, so I’ve got math covered, and actually almost any game could be called using math. Now this one is a higher order thinking game, it employs strategy, but it’s low level enough that with some modifications kids can play it. So this is our version of Carcassone for kids, I think there is an actual official one as well.
Carcassone is a tile laying game that has a little luck built into it based on what you draw, but it’s more controlled randomness than say Monopoly.
You take turns going around building cities, roads, and farms and get points for completing them based on how big it is. There are several expansions that change the game play, but for ease of play with the kids we don’t really use those.
Here’s our modifications:
1. No farmers. Farmers to me is the hardest part of play and the most chancy. They aren’t scored until the end of the game where they get points for each city they feed. For little kids this is too long to wait to get their points. Finishing a town or a monastery is hard enough for them.
2. Draw two tiles and choose one to play. This gives them a bit more control of what they’re doing and also forces them to think what is their best play. Do they want to build a road which gets them 1 point per tile or work on a city which is 2 points a tile?
3. Limit the number of turns. This is more of an attention span thing. We set it up so everyone gets 10 turns, and they know how many turns are left. This helps keep the game shorter.
4. Help each other plan and place your tiles. It’s still competitive and there’s still only one winner, but this way less experienced players get help.
Sharing over at Learning All The Time and Mama Smiles.
Comments
8 responses to “Carcassone for kids”
This looks like something my boys would like. Thanks for pointing it out.
I like the cooperative aspect that you've built in!
That's worked really well for us, it wasn't planned but just sort of happened.
Sounds like a neat game…I hadn't heard of this one before. I agree with MaryAnne…I like how you built in some cooperative guidelines for playing. My girls aren't great with competitive aspects in games. They get super frustrated and things go downhill quickly.
I really love the idea of devoting Fridays just to games!! We have SO many games, and we really do mean to play them, but we can't seem to find a good strategy to making it happen as frequently as I'd like.
Thanks for linking this up, Ticia 🙂Great idea to play games on Fridays! I might have to do the same since we forget to play so many of our games! Thanks for the reminder!
Carcassone is one of my favorite games! I have to try these modifications, and maybe Anna is ready to play it. Way cool to have Friday game day!
[…] Carcassone- This is another great game for teaching management of resources. It also lets your kids see the interaction between towns and farmers and roads, how is it all connected. […]
[…] 4. Carcassonne Big Box Game- This game has more expansions than most any game I know of, and each different expansion adds in some fun new ideas to go with it. I just bought a mini-expansion that adds in a few different tiles and crazy heretics living monasteries. So, basic game play is you draw a tile and find where you can legally play that tile, then decide if you want to put a guy on that tile to build a town, a road, or be a farmer. At the end of the game the person with the most points for building cities and what not wins. This is one of my favorite games. It’s about the level of strategy I like, and it plays in about 45 minutes to an hour. This is another one that once we’ve shared it with friends they’ve tended to buy it. Our Carcassone review. […]
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