Thursday, August 29, 2013

Our Favorite Games Report: August 2013

Wanting some logic training for the girls but not finding anything packaged that I like, I've begun to consciously incorporate all kinds of puzzles and games into our days. Of course, we've always played puzzles and games, but bringing them also into our "work hours," not just our free time, has let us start playing together MUCH more often, as well as allowed the girls to feel free to explore more than just their very favorites.

Here's what we've been playing this month:

There's a new puzzle every day, and although Will and I don't play every single day, we do play most days.
(Now that we've got the junior version, I can put the sexy cards back in the adult version that we've been using!)

We haven't gotten the hang of this game yet, but we're sticking with it.
(SUCH a great game for creativity and logic!)

Although the rest of the family is so over this one, Sorry is ALWAYS Syd's choice!

This one is a recent love. We tried playing it back when I first bought it around Christmastime, but it was too hard to hold the girls' attention. Since it had all its pieces, however, and since there's no price like a Goodwill price, I held onto it. 

At some point this month, on a nice afternoon when our plan was to take a couple of board games and Pandora radio on the ipad out to the picnic table by the chickens, Will chose this game again, probably because she'd forgotten how frustrated she'd been with it just a few months ago. She and I played it while Sydney watched and drew and fed stuff to the chickens, and this time, she loved it!

Key to the experience is that this time she was actually able to answer a couple of the questions--

"What city holds the Liberty Bell?"
"In what city did both the Second Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention convene?"

--and, since we had the ipad right there, whenever she was curious about a piece of trivia, we just looked it up! We looked up the details of and circumstances surrounding the United States' purchase of Alaska ("How can you just BUY a state?!?" she asked), and the Louisiana Purchase, and we watched several scenes of Close Encounters of the Third Kind so that both girls could see Devil's Tower--I think we'll also be able to see that one in person this summer on our dino dig road trip.

Some games are becoming a little tricky right now, because Will is growing interested in more complicated, multi-player games, like Settlers of Cataan and Axis and Allies, that just don't hold Syd's attention, but having the three of us play an hours-long game while leaving Syd out is also pretty impossible. We have tentative future plans with another family who has kids around the same ages as ours to have a dinner and game night, so that the older kids and at least a couple of the adults can try out a free kiddie D&D game that I found. If that works out well, perhaps it can become some sort of monthly family board game club!

2 comments:

Tina said...

First, if you make it out to Devil's Tower, LET ME KNOW! We are about 8 hours away and we could meet you there (or Montana has some pretty good dig sites from what I've heard). Emma and I would love to meet you and the girls.

Second, we just scored the Carmen Sandiego game from our local good will. Even though the questions are tough, Emma likes it. Next time we try it, we know to make lots of time. Having the internet handy is a great idea when playing this game. Thanks for the tip!

Third, we use to have family game nights back when I was in high school, and I always loved them. I really need to see if anyone near me would be interested.

julie said...

Family game nights sound fun! When we had a sleepover at the zoo, they had a time set aside for family board games. Most families just played with each other, but it was really fun to raid the zoo's stash for games that we'd never played before.