Game: Ticket to Ride

Game Summary by BoardGameGeek.com

With elegantly simple gameplay, Ticket to Ride can be learned in 3 minutes, while providing players with intense strategic and tactical decisions every turn. Players collect cards of various types of train cars they then use to claim railway routes in North America. The longer the routes, the more points they earn. Additional points come to those who fulfill Destination Tickets – goal cards that connect distant cities; and to the player who builds the longest continuous route.
"The rules are simple enough to write on a train ticket – each turn you either draw more cards, claim a route, or get additional Destination Tickets," says Ticket to Ride author, Alan R. Moon. "The tension comes from being forced to balance greed – adding more cards to your hand, and fear – losing a critical route to a competitor."

Ticket to Ride continues in the tradition of Days of Wonder's big format board games featuring high-quality illustrations and components including: an oversize board map of North America, 225 custom-molded train cars, 144 illustrated cards, and wooden scoring markers.

Teacher Tips

With four expansion sets (game supplimentals) and four alternate geographic versions one could spend quite a bit on this game. You can, however, just buy the basic game and spend some extra time creating your own alternative maps and missions, or get the artistic students to come into the library and do it. Educators may also want to read a picture book about the locations with the students before game play. Pic from boardgamegeek.com

Standards and References linked to this game:

NJ Core Curr
{SOC.5-8.6.6.A.6} Distinguish among the major map types, including physical, political, topographic, and demographic. (NJ Core Curr )

{SOC.5-8.6.6.A.11} Describe the significance of the major cities of New Jersey, the United States, and the world. (NJ Core Curr )

{SOC.5-8.6.6.B.1} Compare and contrast the physical and human characteristics of places in regions in New Jersey, the United States, and the world. (NJ Core Curr )

{MA.5.4.4.5 D.1} Devise strategies for winning simple games (e.g., start with two piles of objects, each of two players in turn removes any number of objects from a single pile, and the person to take the last group of objects wins) and express those strategies as sets of directions. (NJ Core Curr )

{MA.5.4.5 A.1} Learn mathematics through problem solving, inquiry, and discovery. (NJ Core Curr )

{MA.5.4.5 A.2.d} Solve problems that arise in mathematics and in other contexts.
Problems that can be solved in several ways(NJ Core Curr )