Play A Hipbone Game!

I developed the following image by playing a HipBone game (Cameron, C, 1999) with concepts from my reflections of some of my key learning experiences. The board I used is called the Waterbird Board. You can read a nice intro to HipBone Games, including a cool sample game, learn a detailed history of the games, and view some additional sample games.

Play a HipBone game with concepts you identify from your key learning experience reflections and see some of your connections in new ways! The content of any circle must have an identifiable connection to the content of each connected circle. Carefully fill each circle, one move at a time. You choose the order and the content.

Download a Board

To create your own HipBone game, begin with a playing board. You can download a color or black and white image file for your game, save it in a graphic application like Google draw, and add your own text.

Black and White Waterbird Board. You do not have to fill in the circles in the order in which they are numbered. The numbers simply help identify the circles.

Example of Play

The following board shows the results of a game played by a group of ISSM students with CSUMB librarian Pam Baker. When you play, you’ll probably play alone with your concepts (but you could invite a friend to play with you, after sharing your concepts), but the goal is the same, that every “concept” played within a circle connects in some way, identifiable to you, to the concepts in all connected circles.

HipBone game played by Pam Baker, CSUMB librarian, and ISSM students

Play 1 #1 purple
Play 2 #7 Prince (Rock celebrity who wears purple)
Play 3 #3 royalty (word prince belongs to “royal” Prince known as “His Purple Majesty
AND Purple was the color of royalty in medieval Europe)
Play 4 #5 money (Prince makes money on “royalties” from his songs)
Play 5 #9 Cinderella (Cinderella from a once rich family marries a prince and becomes
royalty)
Play 6 #6 slipper (Cinderella loses a slipper and the Prince finds it fits her on his search)
Play 7 #2 Royal purple slipper orchid from Peru (connects #1, #3, #6)
Play 8 #8 The Color Purple is story like Cinderella, has the “color purple” in title, made
Walker a lot of money through book and movie royalties)
Play 9 #10 glass (Prince has song “The Glass Cutter”; Cinderella’s slipper was
made of glass)
Play 10 #4 flower (orchid is a flower; there is a Cinderella flower; “The Color Purple
refers to a flower: Celie says God’s gift can sometimes be overlooked — like his sneaking a purple flower in an otherwise blandly colored field…”; Cinderella’s
slipper could be called a ”lady slipper.”

Track and Share Your “Moves”

As you play, keep track of the order in which you fill your circles and the connections you’re attributing to each concept you put within each circle. Then, save your results along with a picture of your completed Waterbird Board. You’ll share these in your final post, putting your “collage” of connections together.