74) Cardboard Tic-Tac-Toe Board

 In the last few weeks, The Bee has begun to show an interest in playing games. She gets that you should take turns, and that there are rules to games, although she often likes to make up her own rules. So it seemed like a good time to introduce her to tic-tac-toe. We have been on a cardboard kick this week so we stuck with the trend by making the tic-tac-toe board and pieces out of cardboard. I started by taking a large flat piece of cardboard and measured out 9 equal squares. I then selected two colors of duck tape and taped each square to make the checkerboard pattern. To even out the edges of the squares I used a thinner black electrical tape along the edges to form a grid. I then cut 10 rectangles out of cardboard. On one I drew and X and cut it out on another an O. I then traced each one onto 4 more pieces of cardboard and cut them out. Then it was time to play! The Bee picked the rules up quickly and was totally into blocking me from getting three in a row. She liked alternating between being the X's and O's. The Bean watched the game with interest and was in charge of holding the extra pieces. I was pleasantly surprised that she didn't try and take the pieces off the board. I loved that the board was big enough for the three of us to sit around it. It made learning and playing the game with little ones a lot easier.

The cardboard X in process

The tic-tac-toe board in process