Age Down Adaptation (ADA): Ticket to Ride

In a previous entry i noted that Ticket to ride is a game that is designed for age 8+ and how I've made variants for my girls so that they can engage with the game before they are within that age bracket.  At 3 and 4 they are desperate to be a part of what we're doing and don't always want special 'kids' games, they want what mummy and daddy are doing.  This is a more in depth break down of the game and how to extend it's game play.
The variants we've created are as follows

To begin with reveal a card, and place your trains on a route of that colour anywhere on the board, of any number of trains, person who runs out of trains first wins.  This teaches Colour recognition, counting, waiting for your turn.

After this and this is where we're at at the moment, we're collecting the right number/colour of cards to make a route before playing the trains.  So if you're wanting to place three green trains down on the board you need to collect three green cards before placing the trains down on the three length route.  We place the cards out as they are in the game, 5 face up, and then the deck next to that.  two cards may be picked up either from the face up cards or the deck or a combination of both or one multi color card from the face up selection, this is exactly as it's played in the full fledged game.  First person to run out of trains wins
Now we're looking at the above benefits of colour recognition  turn taking and such but with the added bonus of working with numbers and some decision making on where to get the cards from.

As the girls get more used to this version, the next stage will be that of pointing out to them two points on the map, for example in our version which is 'Europe' we could point out England and Athens, ad her task is to bet one long consecutive route between the two cities, first to meet their goal, wins.

The difference between the stages are getting less dramatic with each level because we're getting so near the actual game rules now.  Once reading is a factor then they can start taking on tickets and trying to get their goals in secret.

The last stage of it would be introducing the other rules, the ferry locomotives, tunnels, stations etc.


Pulling apart this game like this and offering it to my girls at age appropriate levels extends the use of the game in our house and makes something that they see as mum and dads accessible  making them feel like they're a part of the family.
Some of the stages could be seen as rule learning steps instead of something that needs to be done for a long time, children learn so quickly and if they are in the habit of learning  as most children are the concepts are pretty easy for them to grasp.