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, located in ��ݮ��Ƶ Wellington, Ontario, is an organization that supports literacy and essential skills development across all ages. Through collaboration with community partners and literacy service providers, Project READ connects learners with opportunities to grow their reading, writing, speaking, and numerical literacy in inclusive and accessible ways.

One of Project READ’s most unique initiatives is the Literacy Bike Program, a mobile literacy outreach project designed to bring various activities and educational resources directly to families outside in local parks during the summer months. The program promotes early literacy engagement through fun and approachable outdoor programming for children, typically aged 3 to 10+ years. See the banner pictures to see the Literacy Bike in action!

We collaborated with Project READ to design a custom board game collection tailored specifically for their Literacy Bike Program. Unlike traditional indoor programs, a more creative and practical approach was required to select games that could travel with the bike and be used in outdoor park settings.

We began with a planning session with Project READ staff to learn more about their goals, demographics, and environmental constraints. The Literacy Bike itself includes a trailer and storage box which holds all the materials. The program is run by a single staff member who rides the bike to local parks. Group sizes vary widely, from a single small family to over 8 large families, depending on the day, time, location, and weather conditions. The age range of participants can also vary quite widely. With this in mind, our team then developed a preliminary collection of games to try out in the park, as well as additional materials such as picnic blankets, dice trays, cardholders, and game mats to help combat outdoor elements such as uneven surfaces on the ground and wind . During our trial session, we paid special attention to how each game functioned in outdoor environments and were most enjoyed by families. As with all our collections, the contents of each game were individually bagged and labelled, which we noticed to be especially helpful when setting up and cleaning up from games played on the ground (especially if bad weather suddenly arrives and everything needed to be cleaned up quickly!). Below we list the criteria and considerations we took into account when deciding which games to include in this unique outdoor collection. You will also find a Table listing all the board games and accompanying materials we developed that are openly available to all. We also provide information about the extra materials we sourced to help the games be played outside.

The materials here are provided openly for other interested schools and community locations to use and adapt according to a  license, unless stated otherwise. This license allows re-users to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. (The creator for the text of these materials should be indicated to be Daniela O'Neill. Some items may have other stated attributions, such as photographs or drawings for which sources and any applicable permissions are noted).

Some of the most important considerations, that led to either a game being included or not included in this collection, were:

• games that had no or only a few small pieces or cards to avoid materials getting lost in the grass or wind
• games that don’t require much space and whose components allowed for play on uneven surfaces (e.g., picnic blanket, ground) or within the game box itself
• compact and lightweight games that could fit in the bike’s storage box
• a smaller set of games given the availability of only one staff member to supervise
• simple instructions that could be summarized on a 1-page QuickStart Instructions (as with games in all our collections), so a single staff member or older children can easily explain all the games 
• playable by children of different ages together within the range of about 3 to 10 years
• playable by larger families with grandparents and other adults
• playable in different languages and with different literacy levels
• prioritized games that encourage language and literacy skills in a fun and engaging way (e.g., Lion in my Way and Stories of the Three Coins focus on storytelling) given Project Read’s mission to help children build and practice essential literacy skills
• some games that could be played in open-ended ways (e.g., could also support pretend play)
• wide variety of themes that would expose children to lots of different vocabulary
• as in all our collections, we avoided any games with commercial or popular culture themes that might limit conversation if not familiar to all children, games with noisy elements, and games with parts that could get used up (e.g., dry erase markers)
• as in all our collections, we prioritized high-quality, durable games with beautiful aesthetics and art to provide more for players to see and talk about
• games were delivered in two large plastic storage bins rather than the usual drawer units to accommodate their storage setup during the non-summer months in a storage facility.  

In addition to the collection of board games listed in this table, we also included several unique items to facilitate play outdoors. These items included:

• ���dz�����vinyl table cloths in plain colours for families to play on the grass and easily be able to see and located pieces and components of games to reduce their loss
• ���dz�����game mats to further provide a flatter surface to play on
• some hand-held card holders from Gamewright
• ���dz�����dice trays for games with dice or other small components

We are awaiting feedback :)