Up Your Games

Make super-sized versions of tabletop favorites to play on the lawn.

Everyone has cornhole, bocce, and croquet sets—and they are great games for social distancing—but it’s time for something new. Try making super-sized versions of tabletop favorites to play on the lawn: Yahtzee, TicTacToe, Dominoes, and Scrabble. You’ll need some basic woodworking tools and supplies, but the instructions are super simple and the templates, scorecards, and rules are right here. Game on!

YARDZEE

Cut a 4″x4″ into five 4-inch lengths, creating cubes, and then sand and paint the cubes to resemble dice. Bonus: Make one extra dice to play Yarkle, fun game where pushing your luck can pay off big.

For printable Yardzee scorecards, click here.

For printable Yarkle scorecards, click here. For Yarkle rules, click here.

TIC TAC TOE

Crisscross four 1″x6′ PVC pipes to form the board, winding tape around the joints to hold them in place. Use a marker or paint to draw X’s and O’s on 10 flying disks (or use two colors) for game pieces.

Tile distribution for a standard set of 28 dominoes. 

OUTDOOR DOMINOES

Cut two 2″x6″x10′ and one 2″x6″x8′ boards into 28 11-inch long pieces. Sand and paint or stain as desired, and then paint the dots according to the tile distribution chart. (For a larger view, click here.)

There are many, many ways to play dominoes. For rules to the most common games, including straight dominoes, chickenfoot, and Mexican train, visit DominoRules.com.  

SUPER WORD SCRAMBLE

Buy or cut 100 6″x6″ wooden squares. Use a marker, paint and stencils, or stickers to add the letters and values, as noted below. Tie lightweight rope around stakes to form the tile holders (lean the tiles against the rope).

For simple rules, click here.