The Inevitable Disaster
It is bound to happen at some point or other, sooner or later, it happens to all of us. There are three eternal, inevitable truths: we will all eventually die, until that point we will all pay taxes, and if you have something in your class, bits will go missing.
It may not be deliberate, it may not be sinister, it may simply be that the colourful piece of wood or plastic that looked good enough to eat was put to the test, or that A hid the piece from B because A thought B looked like they might throw it and now A can't remember where A put it and B through to Z have had no luck locating it either. In fact the piece may well be in another similarly coloured box, or under something, in something, behind something or just turned invisible.
Whatever the reason, pieces go missing. This is the inevitable disaster you encounter when you have a game collection at school. Of course, you could always stop students touching the games, but then chances are it would still happen anyway, just a lot more mysteriously.
I have read and heard a lot of discussion on what to do in these cases. Friends of mine have taken the step of photocopying every page in a rules booklet, or laminated them, or keeping detailed logs of every piece of card and bit of wood. These are all useful strategies of course, but you should always choose the option that is easiest for you. There are also a few shortcuts, keep in mind that many publishers upload copies of rules to their website, or they are available to download from sites like http://www.boardgamegeek.com/. All these rule books also usually have a manifest of the pieces in the game, thus making keeping track of them easier. But whatever the preparation you do, prepare for the fact that no matter how prepared you are, no matter how careful, eventually a piece will wander off from the rest and go missing.
Teachers are a creative and innovative bunch. Solutions to this issue range from contacting publishers (email addresses are usually printed in the rules somewhere, or certainly available from a website), to creating your own replacements. I have had special dice go missing, in this case I have created a small sheet with all the special symbols on them, given them numbers from 1 to 6 and added a simple and easily available 6 sided dice to the box. Students can now roll that and end up with the special result without the special dice. Other tokens may be substituted as needed, and there are times where one or two pieces can go missing without having a huge impact on the game.
It is a worry, and an inevitable disaster, if you have a game collection in your class I recommend you have a borrowing sheet, so if other teachers or classes borrow your games you know where they are. I also recommend having a group of students (or yourself if you have the time) act as monitors and quickly check the game to make sure all the bits are where they should be.
When looking for pieces, cards, card board tokens and so forth, don't forget to look beneath the plastic insert inside the box if the game comes with one, there are plenty of times where I have nearly flown into 'missing piece' fuelled frenzy before finding it second later by looking underneath the plastic insert.
This inevitable disaster will happen, sometimes you will find the wandering piece, at other times you will need to write and ask to buy a replacement or get creative to solve the problem. But despite this risk, the value children get from playing games with one another, and the educational benefits derived from thinking carefully, planning, playing strategically and playing tactically all far out weigh the occasional annoyance created by this inevitable disaster.
