We love to play games. All sorts of games. As I sat down to write this, Trainboy ran up and asked: "Mommy, can we play another game?" Of course. This time it was Candyland. Before that, the game of Life, Blokus & also Scrabble. No, Trainboy isn't quite able to understand and follow all the rules to some of the games, but he enjoys participating as much as he can. Sometimes that is just holding pieces and playing pretend while the rest of us play. Sometimes that's how we play the games - making up our own rules or by playing pretend.
Dinoguy is interested in knowing how to play by the rules so he can "win". The first time he didn't win Monopoly was a bit traumatic for him, I'm sad to say. But he consoled himself by deciding he would learn to play better and not lose anymore. Often, when the random rolls of the die aren't going in his favor, he just declares the game over and quits, instead of dealing with losing. Other times, I tell him we can put it on pause and come back to it in a little bit.
Scrabble today was entertaining. I learned that he knows several words I didn't know he knew. Last night he got interested in keeping score for a scrabble game I was playing, leading to him practicing writing numbers and his interest in playing with me today. Trainboy also enjoyed making words, showing he is more capable than I may give him credit sometimes.
Which is part of my thoughts on this. Don't sell your kids short by following the age recommendations for games. Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, Hi-ho cherry-o - they are all fun...but that doesn't mean that is all your kid can play. Let them join in on some "adult" games, maybe just in free play, maybe with modified rules, or using all the rules. You might be in for a surprise at what they can do, and how much fun you can have together.
The math geek in me gets really excited at all the math ideas being learned in some of the games...I don't know if people realize how much can be learned from game playing.
Anyway - here are some of our games, and some of the mathematical ideas contained in them.
Battleship: Graphing! All that A2, B4 stuff... I love it!
Connect 4 - again, there are graphing concepts there. And patterns.
The game of Life, Monopoly - money skills! arithmetic! I am irritated with the new versions coming out that have "debit" cards so that people don't have to do the math themselves. Are you kidding?
Rummikub - patterns, sets, numbers
Backgammon, Chess - logic, patterns, arithmetic, geometry...
Scrabble - arithmetic, logic & spelling! What more can you ask for? :) (My current fave.)
Blokus, Blokus trigon, Rumis - these are all awesome geometric & logic thinking games that I love. Kids can easily learn the rules or freeplay with the fun pieces.
Izzi, Set 10 - simple card games full of patterns & logic!
Candyland, Chutes & Ladders, other "preschool" games - there's great stuff in these too...I just get so bored with them so fast! It's way more fun to teach my kids how to play games I like. :)
For fun: Here's a pic of Dinoguy eating his current favorite green food - cilantro. Who would've guessed?
8 comments:
ethan LOVES playing games. and you're right about not following age guidelines for the games so strictly. ethan is only 4, but his favorite game to play is monopoly, jr. (ages 5 and up they say). i love watching him figure out the math in it. he's getting pretty good!
whoops, this is jessica posting, my husband was just still logged on with his account... :)
We played games all the time when the kids were younger. So much fund and so much learning. Changing the rules around and seeing how it changes the play and outcome of a game is also very cool and very mathematical!
I think games are a great family activity! We love playing them at our house too.
That's crazy that Dinoguy eats cilantro plain.
I love hearing all of your math ideas for teaching kids. I'm always thinking about the language arts side of things. :) I've found the age recommendations are a little off too, but I have yet to try games like Scrabble and Monopoly. I'll have to give it a go. By the way, the cilantro is hilarious!
cilantro really? ew.
and i'll be really impressed when Lorn solves a Rubix as an elementary school kid. :)
btw i love that Lorn is in a PACKERS shirt (in dallas nonetheless). Born and bred for football and lacrosse :)
thanks for sharing. blokus is a family favorite. and i totally agree with you about the debit card monopoly--we will NEVER own that version.
i recently posted about games too--yahtzee has many math possibilities. My husband of course likes to announce the probabilities before each roll. but for kids it's adding and early multiplication.
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