This webpage, available via the British Museum’s online “Young Explorers” resources, shows how to create a “top-trumps” game involving fantastic creatures from several cultures using easy to obtain materials: ruler, blank paper, pencil and colouring pencils/crayons. Users are told how to get started by drawing out a template left blank at the top and with several ruled lines beneath. Those creating the game are free to select any mythological figure for each card though suggestions are offered from mythologies of ancient Greece, Mexico, Gambia, Australia, China and India. Links can be followed to further information about some of the creatures, including “Cyclops” from ancient Greek myth. To create each card, users are told to draw and colour a picture of a given creature beneath which they decide on rankings for specific set categories: the webpage suggests “strength,” “intelligence,” “bravery,” “kindness,” “magic” and “fear factor.” Players are told how to play their game via a rehearsal of the rules for top-trumps.

This webpage enables children to engage with the educational potential of objects at the British Museum using easily-obtainable things like paper and colouring pencils. While the suggested topics are all creatures, the set categories could just as easily apply to other types of characters, e.g. “deities” or “heroines”. 

By following links to specific mythological creatures, children are able to engage in a hands-on comparative study of myth by researching and assessing details about specific creatures from different cultures, ancient Greece included. In order to draw and categorise some of the creatures, children are given links to objects in the Museum’s online collection which include the creature in question. By following these links, children will be able to experience, and take inspiration from, artefacts created by artists from the particular culture. Some of the information here, however, is pitched at those with an understanding of terms which might go over the head of children – e.g. “acquisitional details” – and some users might prefer to research their creatures from other sources such as websites and books for children.

Rice, Helen, Rachel Blades and Jennifer Gibb, “Evaluation of the National 2011 Schools Top Trumps Tournament: Final report – executive summary”, London: National Children’s Bureau 2011, toptrumps.com (accessed: August 3, 2020).

Genre: Creative activity and games website promoting classical mythology