Looney Labs Educators Mailing list Archive

[Edu] Aquarius rules for 3 year olds

  • FromKristin Looney <kristin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • DateFri, 08 May 2009 22:00:51 -0400
Hello Looney Teachers!

We are hard at work on a reprint of Aquarius (finally!) and would love some teacher input on something. We are putting the age on the game as 6 to Adult, but want to include a rules variant for playing with 3 or 4 year olds. We have heard over and over again about how parents remove the action cards and adjust the rules slightly so they can use Aquarius as a first card game to play with their young kids...

Ok, so what are the rules to that simple game? People will continue to make up their own way to play - but what rules should we publish?

We have a new member on the list - Sharon Ritchie is part of the creative team at our design studio that is working with us on the reprint. She has been playing the game with her 4 year old daughter Lydia by rules Lydia came up with. I have no idea if these are good - but it's a place to start the conversation.

How do you adjust the rules to play with young kids?

-Kristin

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Lydia's Rules

The player who completes their goal chain first wins. The number of cards that must be connected is decided by the players. We base it on the youngest player's age. In Lydia's case we match 3 and sometimes 4 cards.

* Discard the Action Cards

* Each player chooses a goal and places it face-up on the table.

* Place any four block card that has at least one goal face up to begin.

* Shuffle the deck.

* Place the rest of the cards in a pile face down.

* Players take turns drawing a card from the top of the pile. If the player has a card that matches his or her goal the player can begin to make a chain. If the card chosen doesn't have a match it is set it aside. If player's goal is not part of the first card placed on the table, that player has to wait until another card from another player is connected to begin play.

* Players take turns drawing and discarding cards until one player has matched enough cards to complete the goal.

* If players run through the deck without a winner, reshuffle the cards and start the pile again.
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