Puzzle Games That Teenagers Like: Izzi

I didn't actually mean for this to turn into a series, but the kids and I messed around with SO many logic games and puzzles and fidgets recently as we absolutely burned through The Great Gatsby audiobook (if you can listen to a book read by Sean Astin, LISTEN TO A BOOK READ BY SEAN ASTIN!) that it really got me thinking about them and the place that they've held in our homeschool high school. 

That place has been central. Absolutely essential. I know I've said this before, but so much of homeschooling high school is having conversations together, or absorbing content together that you're then going to have conversations about. Just last week, which was a short school week interrupted by some service learning and a day trip, we finished The Great Gatsby audiobook, then talked about it endlessly since, and watched a two-hour documentary on Frida Kahlo, then talked about it endlessly since. This week we'll be reading some history together, so we can talk about it endlessly, and some short fiction, which, yes, we'll then talk about endlessly. Over the past 10+ years of interacting with these two kids in meaningful conversation and the consumption of educational content, I've noticed that they pay more attention when they have something to do with their hands, and that they demonstrate more intellectual engagement when their hands are also engaged.

If they're the only people in their college lecture halls with drawing pads and crochet projects and fidgets, then so be it.

This puzzle, Izzi, is currently out of print (although ThinkFun has a different puzzle by the same name. Did they buy Izzi and rework it? Dunno!), but I have learned that it is a pattern puzzle--more specifically, an edge-matching pattern puzzle--and it's quite good on several levels. The colors and patterns are appealing, and like Shashibo, you can make interesting patterns and shapes with pleasing symmetry:

But like those pesky pentominoes that the kids and I also love, this beautiful pattern puzzle is also a legitimately challenging puzzle, with endless ways to just almost solve it... except for that one last piece!

I know that these puzzles have academic value, but I'd love to isolate the specific values that intersect with their appeal, and use those to tempt my teenagers into adjacent areas of study. I can clearly see the possibilities in computer programming and mathematics, but I haven't yet found a specific connection that would serve as a direct step from puzzle to further exploration.

And that's why I have so many books on puzzles, logic, and recreational mathematics on hold for me at my local university's library!

Logic Games Teenagers Like: Rush Hour

This game has just about endless replay value, which is great because it's made entirely of plastic and so will exist until the death of the Sun.

Syd discovered Rush Hour at a hands-on museum a few years ago. It was possibly our gateway into ThinkFun games, all of which we're obsessed with...

...and Rush Hour is no different!

Syd, especially, has always been SUPER into logic games, and she's solved every puzzle in the basic deck a couple of times. I actually check this game out from the local university's library and keep it for a couple of months until everyone is done playing with it, then I return it. Inevitably, I remember it again in a couple of years and check it out again and we play it all over again! I feel like this is a good way to get around the gross fact that this game is all plastic, and now I'm realizing that perhaps my great goal in life is to organize a local homeschool library of manipulatives and games so more families can share out their plastic crap instead of everyone buying their own plastic crap.

In our family homeschool, we've always played logic games or done handwork while listening to audiobooks. Syd, especially, absolutely has to multitask if she's going to be able to pay attention, and I think this is a nice way to incorporate some logic and reasoning study into our schoolwork. Logic and reasoning skills are terrific for math and writing!

If your kid, too, gets super obsessed with Rush Hour, reading about the history of its development is interesting and would be a good intro into encouraging them to design their own original game, or a different version of Rush Hour. The game varieties, like Rush Hour Safari or the two-player game, would also probably be high-interest and expand their skill set. 

Even if this game stood entirely alone, I still think it would have decent replay value because the basic card deck is large enough that you probably can't memorize the solutions between games. However, I'm also VERY interested in the expansion decks, and if we actually owned it, I'd be tempted to invest in this hard case that apparently holds a couple of the expansion decks as well as the full game, lets you travel with it (something that Syd would have been VERY up for when she was younger), and can replace entirely the crappy cardboard box that definitely actively tries to fall apart. 

Ballet Photo Inspiration for the Enthusiastic Amateur Photographer of Sometimes Surly Teenaged Ballerinas

 

Railroad bridges make for terrific photo ops!

Why drag just one teenager out and about for an elaborate photo shoot session when you can drag TWO teenagers?!?

SO many reason why not, right? OMG SO MANY REASONS. The bickering, in stereo. The complaining, in stereo. The only break I get from them sniping at each other is when they join forces to snipe at ME.

But think of the cute sister photos I can take! Sister photos with one in a graduation gown and one in her ballet togs! 

And if the one sister is already there in her ballet togs, why not just go ahead and take some ballet photos?

I've dragged Syd out and about before to take ballet photos. Sometimes we're both really happy with them, and sometimes we end up with Syd mad that I got her pointe shoes dirty and me frustrated that I couldn't really think of cute photos to take and the ones I did think of didn't turn out cute. 

It's tough to be an amateur mommy photographer with severa myopia and an uncertain aesthetic!

This time round, I'm taking a lesson from my Senior photos shot list and making a similar shot list of ballet photos. I don't have as many specific locations in mind as I do for Will's photos, so hopefully I can assemble a large enough bank of inspiration photos that wherever we end up, I can flip through them and come up with something I want to try.

Here are some of my favorite inspo photos from my Ballet Photos Pinboard:

Teen Senior Pictures image via Treasure Layne Photography

I love this idea of using a bridge railing as a ballet barre:

Ballet Inspired Ames Senior Pictures via Amelia Renee Photography

Lexi Senior 18 Plano Senior via Clara Bella Photography

A Sunrise Ballerina Session in DC via Abby Grace

North Park Ballet Photos image via Jenna Hidinger Photography

I also got some pose ideas by scrolling through photos I've taken of Syd's various class observations and recitals over the years. It both gives me good ideas for poses in general and for poses that it would be cute to have Syd redo for comparison to her baby self:

I'm especially excited to have Syd recreate this one. Look at that teeny-tiny dancer!

Ballet photos are extra fun because you can also play around with clothing. I'm pretty sure my kid likes her emo garb and black Converse a ton better than she likes her burgundy leotard and pink tights! So I think some of the poses and locations I've got in mind will look even better with street clothing.

Just pray for me that I don't get her pointe shoes dirty again! She has literally NOT forgiven me for the last time that happened, even though I swear I just thought that since they were already filthy from dancing AND dead a little gravel wouldn't matter...

Trying to Figure Out Senior Photos for My Kid

First she wasn't interested in Senior photos, then she was.

May that live forever as one of my greatest accomplishments as a parent.

I mean, the kid definitely doesn't care. Tbh, if I'd never brought it up, I doubt the concept of Senior photos would have ever come to her attention. And if they had ever come to her attention, I doubt she would have ever entertained the notion of wanting any for herself.

But such is the nature of parenting. We want ridiculous things for our children that they do not want for themselves, and we convince them that they want them, too, so that we can have the joy of it. For me in this particular scenario, the convincing involved the lure of a shopping trip with her bestie and graduation announcements sent to her dad's family, who might just buy her something off her college dorm Amazon wishlist.

Tangent: you guys, kitting a kid out for a college dorm is NO JOKE!!! I may have to commit larceny to obtain the Woozoo fan that all the other prospective freshman parents are raving about. And a mattress topper AND mattress pad--

--because apparently you need both on top of your perfectly good dorm mattress?

And then, of course, instead of paying a professional to take beautiful photos of my child, I am insisting on doing it myself, because that's obviously half the fun of doing Senior portraits, and I will continue to think that until my Senior, who, by the way, hates posing for photos, pitches a fit posing for her first set of photos as she definitely will. 

I also super want to do some really homeschool-specific Senior photos. That sounds like a cute idea until you remember that homeschooling teenagers pretty much looks exactly the same as any other kind of schooling, except you do it on your couch or outside on a blanket or whatever. And a photo of a teenager on a couch is just... a photo of a teenager on a couch. And a photo of a teenager on a blanket? Um, that's just a picnic? How am I supposed to use photography to embody what it's like to sit on the floor and debate about political art with one teenager lying on my bed and one teenager sprawled across my deck chair? Or visually portray listening to Sean Astin narrate The Great Gatsby while we all sit on, yes, the couch and argue about which character we hate most? 

Most of homeschooling teenagers is literally just lounging on stuff and running your mouths. That doesn't photograph well.

Here are some cute ideas for things that DO photograph well that Pinterest found for me, part of my Senior Photos Pinboard:

Use Scrabble Tiles image from Fix the Photo

I also think it could be cute to photograph 2022 in Base Ten blocks, because you know how we are about our Base Ten blocks!

Senior Boy image via Sevyn Ezra Photography

I think this one would be cute either with her little clothes or with her Girl Scout vests:

Timeline from Fix the Photo

These are super cute poses for my bookish child, and it also got me thinking that it would also be super cute to have her do all the traditional Senior photo poses, but with a book in one hand. And that would keep us from fighting about how she's glaring at me instead of smiling in every photo!

Brunette Beauty image via Lisa McNiel

Kenzie via Catie Bartlett

Okay, we're not doing a traditional graduation (I mean, obviously), but Will DOES have her Slytherin robe that is actually a Josten's graduation gown with a Slytherin patch sewed on, and you can't even see the patch if she leaves the robe unzipped. And I found my old high school graduation cap, also from Josten's, that is VERY dusty and VERY red, and we've got Matt's old high school graduation tassel, also very dusty and very yellow. 

What I'm telling you is I think we could one hundred percent nail this photo:

In the Gown Near Campus from Fix the Photo

I'm also thinking we could do some cute photos based on Will's favorite childhood places, like the park near our old house, the drive-in, the public library, etc., and definitely some photos that have the chickens or the dog in them. Please let me know if you think of anymore cute homeschool-themed Senior photos, because I feel like the Base Ten blocks graduation year is a pretty deep cut and literally nobody is going to get it but me and my kids. So what I really need are some homeschool-themed photos that non-homeschoolers will understand.

Things I Bought for My Teenagers and They Liked: Shashibo

When I buy gifts for the kids Christmas stockings, I still like to include a sensory/open-ended fidget-type toy. Both of my kids are sensory seekers, and one, in particular, is also a fidgeter. They both like patterns and love logic games, although the logic games that they each prefer are very different.

These Shashibo, thanks to being embarrassingly spendy, were a bit of a gamble. The kids haven't aged out of a lot of sensory toys as much as they've aged out of the packaging and marketing for those toys, so I was having a hard time coming up with something that filled a sensorial need but would appeal to a couple of jaded teenagers. The Shashibo looked sophisticated--with a price point to match!--and when I researched I did note a lot of older kids and adults playing with them.

So I bought a set of four. And my teenagers like them!

Here's what we like about them:

They're fiddly.

You can make specific shapes and patterns, but you can also literally just fiddle with the Shashibo, and beautiful shapes and patterns just appear. The flipping and folding feel nice, as does the little tug to separate the magnets.

The patterns are appealing.

The way the color schemes work, there's always an interesting visual pattern to look at as you fiddle with the Shashibo. And when you land on a shape that you like, that's pretty, too, as is the color combo that makes up that shape. 

The Shashibo fit together to make bigger patterns.

This is personally my favorite part of the Shashibo, and the fuel of my great desire to own MORE SETS! The shape that you make with one cube will often work symmetrically with the same shape made with one or more of the other cubes, or different shapes will somehow nest interestingly inside another shape. If you're a pattern lover, it will make you very happy!

Repeating the patterns is challenging.

Syd is, like, a visual-spatial genius, so she usually helps me mimic a particular shape when I get stuck, since my own method for mimicking a shape is just to fiddle with it like I fiddled with the previous cube to get the previous shape.

Since we've got four cubes, whenever one of us lands on an interesting shape by fiddling with a single cube, there's always the question of how can we make that shape with the other cubes, too? But because whoever made the cool shape was usually just doing it through mindless fiddling, it's quite a lot of mental work, sometimes, to figure out how to purposefully mimic it with another cube.

Here's what I don't like about them:

They're EXPENSIVE!

OMG I'm literally embarrassed at how much I paid for these, and I will forever scour garage sales and thrift stores to add to my collection rather than buy anymore new, because I need that money for college tuition now.

They might not be super durable?

This isn't a complaint that I have about them, but a complaint that I've seen in some reviews. Some people say the stickers peeled off of theirs after a while, making the cubes unusable since the stickers are what make the folding possible. I dunno, though--we handle ours quite a bit, but we are always super careful with them, and we've made it to May with them looking brand-new still.

What I really need is for Shashibo to get into the educational supply game, like some of my other fun building toys have. I'd probably manage to justify a large set that was discounted for use in my homeschool, especially if it came with lesson plans and extension activities, something like what Zometools has. I have a BIG set of Zometools AND a bunch of their lesson plans and books of extension activities, and I didn't feel guilty at all about blowing my homeschool budget on them because (turn on the homeschool parent voice) they're EdUcAtIoNaL!

P.S. Want to follow along with my craft projects, books I'm reading, dog-walking mishaps, road trips, and other various adventures on the daily? Find me on my Craft Knife Facebook page!

World Thinking Day 2022: A (Take-Home) Trip to Mexico

My local Girl Scout Service Unit likes to celebrate World Thinking Day each year with a Girl Scout geography fair focused on countries that host a Girl Guides or Girl Scouts organization. My troop has participated in this fair several times--here we are presenting China, and here we are presenting Mongolia--and always loved it. It was an especially suitable project for a young homeschooled troop, because you know how much we homeschoolers love our projects!

If I had to guess, I'd say that the kids in my Girl Scout troop would think themselves too old to do another World Thinking Day fair, but because of the pandemic, the SU did something really cool this year that was perfectly suited to their ages and interests: instead of a traditional geography fair, they asked troops to come up with a take-home kit that would allow another troop to explore a selected country, and in return they would receive their own take-home kit.

And that's how my Girl Scout troop ended up crafting a Take-Home Trip to Mexico! Here's what we put in our kit:

Plaster of Paris Sugar Skulls

I put the most labor into this part of the kit, and ended up blowing the troop budget on the supplies for it, too, so that we had to cheap out on the candy and forget about fun patches altogether, but I stand by my claim that sugar skulls are awesome and sugar skull models are awesomely fun.

To accompany the plaster of Paris skulls, I included a set of dimensional fabric paint and Syd's essay on El Dia de los Muertos and its traditions.

Recipe

On the other hand, this was the easiest part of the kit! Will and a buddy had recently earned the Ambassador Dinner Party badge by planning and hosting a Mexican-themed lunch for the rest of the troop, so Will wrote up one of the recipes she used and included it in our kit.

Frida Kahlo Doll and Paintings

This was super easy to pull together, because my own two kids recently studied Frida Kahlo as part of earning a Hispanic Heritage fun patch, so all we had to do was pick out of couple of their favorite activities to include in the kit. 

I copied a Frida Kahlo paper doll for each kid, and included the brads to make the dolls moveable. 

There are actually a lot of paper Frida Kahlo dolls kicking around online, so the hardest part might be choosing which one you want to make!

As part of their own Frida Kahlo study, my kids had researched her paintings and chosen their favorites to print and mount, so for the painting matching game I just printed and cut out a set of those paintings, then typed and printed the titles and years separately. It's not the hardest thing in the world to match the paintings to the titles, but there are a few tricky ones to keep it interesting.

Girl Guides of Mexico Fact Sheet

Since the focus for World Thinking Day is on countries that host a Girl Guide/Girl Scout program, the SU likes the troops to incorporate information about a country's WAGGGS organization into their presentation. In all the years we've done World Thinking Day fairs, my troop has never thought up a more interesting way to present the information than a fact sheet. If you've got a way that's more fun, please let me know!

Mexican Candy

My Girl Scout troop called around but couldn't find any local stores that sell Mexican candy--such a bummer! I guess I'd never really noticed that gap in our candy inventory, although when we travel I often find saladitos at gas stations and always snap them up.

By coincidence, though, I'd already bought this giant set of Mexican candy for Syd's birthday--

--and so before I wrapped it I sneakily opened it up and took out enough candy for each of the Girl Scouts to have a piece. It's not nearly as fun as visiting a dulceria, but I guess it's as good as we're going to get here in Indiana!

Map Stickers

This project was based on an activity I did with my Girl Scout troop when we were first beginning to plan our troop trip to Mexico. It's a good way to assess prior knowledge, and to add new places for the kids to memorize. 

My troop wrote directly onto a giant map of Mexico that I printed and taped together, but to keep the kit workable by individual Girl Scouts, I printed small copies of the map, then stickerized them using Syd's sticker maker. Hopefully, the kids will enjoy sticking their maps onto something fun, and then accidentally memorize all the important locations in Mexico without realizing it!

Assembling the kit turned out to be more work than I'd anticipated, oops, and I didn't have optimal participation from my Girl Scout troop, who are all busy in that post-Spring Break lead-up to finals. If I had it to do again, I'd have incorporated it more forcefully into our trip planning sessions, which I DID have optimal buy-in for. Creating the kit was just as educational (if not more so!) than I think using the kit would be, and it taps into the Girl Scout goal of putting your earned knowledge to work to give service to others. 

And best of all, creating a kit to give out means that WE get a kit of our own to do. Hello, United Kingdom, because we're about to taken an at-home trip to visit you!