Making Educational Games for Fifth Graders

In my Game Design class, we were put into groups and given an assignment to create a political game designed to teach fifth graders about civics. We were supposed to touch on subjects like the electoral college, the constitution, and the bill of rights.

My group created a board game that was made to teach the kids the process of how a bill becomes a law.

The game began by the players rolling a die to determine who went first. The highest roller started the game and play moved clockwise. Play began by the player rolling the die to move the bill around the board. The player than rolled the die a second time to move there game piece in the House.

The player to the left reads the person a question. If they answer correctly, they get to keep the card as a "vote". If not the card gets put back into the pile. The player needs three votes to move onto the Senate and six to move on to the Presidential track. Once a player reaches the Presidential track, they can only move one space at a time if they answer the questions correctly.

Upon reaching the end space in the center of the board, a player spends his or her turn by answering a Presidential question. If correctly answered, the player rolled the die again to move the bill forward.


The person in the end space with the most votes when the bill is passed won the game.

We tested our game out at Shepherd Elementary, where the fifth graders got to spend a class period playing our game. They did not have trouble understanding the rules of the game and enjoyed playing it.