SpongeBob Monopoly

Kids learn from play. Tons. It is really cool to occasionally really see them learning, and I've got to write it down so I remember it later.

For L's birthday recently, I found a brand new copy of Spongebob Monopoly at a thrift store for $5 and quickly bought it and managed to keep it hidden until present time. It was a big hit and we have played a lot of monopoly since then.

What is cool about it is how much he has learned from it, as evidenced by how much he can do himself now, compared to needing help at the beginning. We play by all of the rules. All of them. This includes mortgages and rent and improvements...of course it is in a fun, spongebob theme. :) When he plays with his dad, I think there are slightly different rules, but isn't that the joy of monopoly?

What has he gotten, besides having a lot of fun and quality time with family? Tons of practice counting the dice, learning the values of different monies and how to count them. (Can you say TONS of arithmetic practice?) He recognizes the symbols for all the different cards (reading skills), and knows where the rent information is on the titles. He's learning to deal with not always winning. He's learning about random chance. He's learning to make deals to buy and trade properties.

During today's game, I had to run help H on the computer and when I came back, I asked him what had happened, and he said he'd landed on my property and had to pay me $26 but he didn't have any $20's, and was making change at the bank! :)

To hear him counting the money, see him reaching for the right denominations...be still my math teacher geek heart! :) I restrain myself from giddiness on seeing new understanding. :)

I realized that he learned the names of most of the dinosaurs he knows from last summer when we played Dinosauropoly at Grandma's house. There are many fun variations on monopoly and they are all awesome for learning. (Except maybe the new debit card version. Shun it!)

My favorite game as a kid was "Life". I loved to play it over and over. I'm sure I learned many things from it. I loved it, b/c we would pretend to be having the pretend life that you lived on the board. Sometimes we had tons of kids, other times we "chose" careers over kids. Sometimes we went to college to get a better job, sometimes we stayed single. The end result of the game wasn't the most important part, the imaginative play was much more satisfying and fun.

My current favorite game now is Blokus Trigon. I love the strategy and fitting in the shapes best I can. It's simple and challenging. It's a great game. :)

What was your favorite game as a kid? Why?

What is it now? Why?