Players take turns picking up all the paper clips from one of their cups, (except for the right-end cups, which is where the players will collect their pieces) and redistribute the pieces around the board in a clockwise direction, beginning with the cup to the right of the one from which the player took the paper clips.Įxample: On the first turn of the game, player one picks up the paper clips from the fourth cup from the right. The side of the board closest to each player, as well as the end cup on each player’s right belongs to that player. Place the game board between the two players, with the larger cups on the right and left of the players. Below are the rules from Roger Louis Sinashon’s Web site:
There are many variations on the rules, so feel free to choose a different method of play. and explain the rules of Mancala to the class. Once the Mancala boards have dried and are ready to play with, hand out your play pieces - beans, paperclips, etc. Go ahead and decorate with markers, paint or anything else they’d like! Have them design their own board with symbols representing important aspects of their own lives, including landscapes they’ve seen or different agricultural types Americans use today. Remind students of the use of symbolism in Mancala to represent agriculture, landscape and harvesting.
Distribute decorating materials and egg cartons.See if children can pick up on the similarities and differences between the two. It may be best to show both African versions as well as American versions. You may use the information we’ve provided or research further. Start the class with some basic historical information on Mancala. Suitable game pieces: beans, paperclips, buttons, etc.
Egg cartons (one-dozen-sized container).This lesson would be best suited for a pre-museum visit and is a great way to introduce students to African culture. The decoration and creation of Mancala boards is said to represent agriculture and landscape a depiction of land being turned into a productive field through clearing plowing, irrigation, and harvesting. The slave trade brought the game to the Caribbean and the east coast of South America. North of the equator they use a “two-rank” board south of the equator, a “four rank” board is used. It is played all over Africa with two basic variations. Some even place Mancala among the oldest games in the world, with archaeological evidence reaching back perhaps as far as 6000 B.C.E. carved into the temple roofs of Memphis, Thebes and Luxor. Mancala is a generic name for this type of “count and capture” game and stems from the Arabic word which means “to move.” Examples of this game have been found in Egyptian ruins dated from 1400 B.C.E. Conforms to current European safety standards.A lesson plan by Rachel Burgess and Sarah Gamble from the University of Maine Made from high quality, responsibly sourced materials. Mancala games are a fun way to develop counting and hand/eye coordination skills. The game keeps on going until the players have no more marbles left, and it’s their opponent’s turn. Players can also place their marbles in the holes on their opponent’s side. Players can place marbles in their own mancala (as it counts as a hole) but can’t put them into their opponent’s mancala. During their turn, players must collect all of the marbles in a hole on their side of the board and drop them, one by one, in the next holes in a counter-clockwise motion. To decide who’s going first by flipping a coin or doing rock-paper-scissors.
Wondering how to play mancala? Begin by placing the four stones into each hole (don’t include the mandalas). This fun yet simple wooden board game comes with two rows of six holes and a long mancala at either end. Mancala is a two-player board game where the aim of the game is to collect more marbles than your opponent.