Cardboard, Glue and Scissors

• It is fun to make your own board games and quite simple to make spinners to go with them. Simply take a piece of sturdy cardboard, such as a cereal box, and cut it into a circle. To make the spinner more durable, you can glue more than one layer of cardboard together, but make sure they are not so thick that you cannot punch a hole into the center without ruining the cardboard or bending it so that the spinner cannot spin. Use an awl or sharp nail to punch the hole into the center of the circle. Also make sure that your choice of bolt size does not exceed the width of your cardboard spinner base.
  
  

Mark Sections on Your Spinner Base

• Use a ruler to draw straight lines radiating outward in equal sizes from the center hole to the outer edge of the circle. Use a black marker to draw in the pattern. Use colored markers to make each segment of the circle a different color. Use the black marker again to write in what the player needs to do. For example, if fitting, you may wish to print, "go to Home space" or something like that. Some spinners only use numbers or simply the colors to suggest the play. Make sure that the cardboard is not warped in any way, as this will be a problem later on when you attach your spinner.
  
  

Attach Your Pointer

• The spinner is cut out of another piece of stiff cardboard in the shape of an arrow, with one flat end and a hole in the center. This pointer can be made any color you wish, but black or white is great contrast to the other colors on the spinner. Now you need to get a small-gauge bolt that fits into the hole in the center of your spinner and push it down through the pointer first and through the base of the spinner last. The pointer needs to rest on the smooth part of the bolt so that nothing can impede its ability to spin in any direction. Once it is all in place, you need to apply washers to hold everything in place and screw a nut onto the end of the bolt on the back side of the spinner base. Make sure that your bolt is not too long, so the whole assembly is solid but still able to spin freely.