How Does Your Garden Grow? [Coordinate Mapping Game)

It's been awhile since we practiced map skills. I figured we'd revisit them, this time using coordinates on an X and Y axis for a fun game of luck.

The "How Does Your Garden Grow?" game is just as fun for one player, as it is for many. Since I wanted to be my son's opponent, I printed two of the game boards I'd made, one for each of us. 

After I attached the two pieces of the board together, I glued the cut-out vegetable game pieces onto small wooden disks I picked up at our local craft store. With a die (or two, if you prefer) we were set. 

Download a free 2-page PDF of the game board and game pieces here.

My son and I each placed our set of veggies on the intersections of the lines or the upper and far right perimeter of the board, along the grid lines.

Since we planned to play for about six or seven minutes, I set our kitchen timer.

Now my son rolled the die. The first number rolled was for the X axis (the horizontal plane, along the bottom of the garden grid), and the second number rolled on the die was located on the Y axis (or vertical plane). 

With the two numbers located, we looked to see where they intersected and if any of our veggies were there. If so, the game piece was removed from the game board.

You can, of course, say that the rabbits ate your carrots or the bugs infested your tomatoes. Feel free to add your own backstory.

When the timer went off, we counted our veggies. Since some (green beans) have larger quantities, the winner isn't necessarily the person with the most game pieces still on the garden game board when play is over. This snuck some mental addition in to this game of chance.

This is a quick game to play and could easily be made into a travel version for the car or while at a restaurant!!