Rolling the Dice

One area in which I have yet to blog is the realm of large-group games. As a Beaver leader, I’m always on the lookout for great games for kids to play in a big group.

We have 15 boys, ages five to seven, in our colony, and you just can’t play board games with that many kids, no matter how hard you try.

The kind of games we like best as Beaver leaders are the kind that get them moving, but don’t encourage chaos. Especially if it helps to reinforce whatever we’re learning about that week.

If you ask any active young person which games are their favourites, you’ll likely hear “tag” and “hide and seek” in the list, and for good reason. They both allow for plenty of running around, something that kids often get told not to do.

But a truly good group game is more than just running around. I can still remember a game we played in science class in elementary school that was a form of tag. It accompanied a lesson on the three stages of matter – solid liquid and gas.

When the teacher yelled “Solid”, we all had to link arms with whoever was near and stand still. When she yelled “Liquid” we all walked around normally. And when she yelled “Gas”, we all ran around like maniacs.

So you have the element of running around, which made the 16 boys in my class of 24 quite happy, and it also firmly ingrained the idea of these three states in my mind.

Recently, we played a game with our Beavers that comes from
Taiwan called “Hopping Sticks” – it probably has a Taiwanese name, but I don’t know it. It was a simple relay race – another popular game with groups – in which the Beavers hopped over sticks, then turned around, picked one up and hopped back.

You could make it harder by getting kids to hop on one foot, or hop backwards – or for a group of gymnasts – cartwheel or back flip over the sticks.

Relays are easy to make up on the spot, as are station-based games. Our Beavers actually really like stations. It’s easy for us to divide them up by Lodge group or Tail group and have them go around to do three different things.

The whole thing has got me thinking – why don’t kids play group games as much anymore?

I can remember playing hide and seek for hours, especially in the summer time, when there was less to do, and you could spend hours playing games outside with your friends. It was especially fun to play in the dark – flashlight hide and seek, we called it.

There was also the popular “backwards hide and seek” or “sardines”, in which one person would hide while everyone else counted, and then we would all try to find that one person.

Once you found the hider, you had to hide along with them, until there was only one person left looking. Depending on how many kids were playing and where the hiding spot was, it could get pretty squishy – and giggly.

So, I’m calling on youth group leaders and teachers to help me compile a list of really good outdoor games to play with kids, so that we can all start reviving the culture of playing outside together.

Today my sons and I played Pan-gee-ah, a little-known dinosaur game produced in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia by an independant game-maker. We picked it up at the Fundy Geological Museum in Parrsborough a year or two ago.

You can find it on eBay or kijiji, or you can try contacting the museum through their website at http://museum.gov.ns.ca/fgm/en/home/default.aspx

The game is a little different than most, and it is definitely educational. It has four different kinds of cards - Jurrasic, Triassic and Cretaceous cards, each with a different dinosaur on it (with information about where it is found, how big it was and whether it was a herbivore or a carnivore), as well as Fossil cards for each period, as well as ones labelled Mesozoic.

Ther are two rounds - in the first round you collect dinosaur cards from each of the three eras, and in the second you get your opponents to lose cards by making the dinosaurs go “extinct”.

One of the great things about the game is that you can use as many cards as you like to make the game whatever length you want. For instance, we played with 10 dinosaurs from each era, and it took us about 90 minutes. It probably would have only taken us an hour, but my 5 year old is REALLY slow at rolling the dice and moving his piece around the board.

While we played, I suggested to my 7-year-old that this would be a good game to invite a friend from school over to play.

It really is meant for the 7-10 set, especially ones who love dinosaurs. Though, if you have patience, kids as young as 4 or 5 can play - reading is not required, because everything is colour-coded.

There’s a plethora of educational games like this one out there. Don’t be afraid to pick one up just because it’s not a brand name. Look for games on topics that your kids are interested in, and you’ll probably have lots of success.

I don’t remember who gave us the Apples-to-Apples game that sits on our shelf, but I sure am glad they did.

Describing the game to people, it sounds lame. So I’m not even going to bother. If you want to read about how the games works, visit the Wikipedia entry. Or the “official” website at: http://www.otb-games.com/apples/apples_partybox.html

According to the box, this is a game for 12 and up, but I say that as long as a kid can read, go for it. Of course, just like any time you’re playing a grown-up game with younger kids, you may have to modify the rules a little.

For example, many of the pop culture references may be missed, so give the kids the option to trade in cards if they don’t know anything about the person, place or thing printed on it.

I think the appealing part of the game for me is the fact that there is never a right or wrong answer. The person who is the judge can use whatever criteria they want to select the winning card.

And you are allowed – even encouraged – to try to persuade the judge to pick a certain card. It doesn’t even have to be yours.

One of the little quirks of the game that our family has picked up is the idea that the green apple cards you collect (with the descriptive words on them like smelly, heart-warming or sordid) are accurate descriptors for that person. So, at the end of the game and go through them.

“Oh, I’m smelly, heart-warming and sordid. Sounds about right.”

And then much giggling ensues. At least from me. I’m going to blame my love affair with words for that one.

This is a great game to play with your teens, who will get a kick over having a turn to be the judge of you for a turn, and you end up finding out a lot about them in the meantime. This game does more than just entertain – it gives insight into a person’s sense of humor and how they look at the world.

And for parents of teens, that is a refreshing (and often surprising!) turn of events.

When my younger brother and I were in university, we made a pact. We decided that we would each give the other a board game for Christmas. The only rule was that it had to be something that could be played by two people (though it could be played by more), because we would rely on them for entertainment for the whole Christmas break.

We spent Christmases at our grandmother’s house, where there was a small but interesting collection of old board games. Monopoly and Chinese Checkers shared shelf space with Triominos and Head of the Class.

But by the time we got to university, we’d long ago memorized all of the answers to all of the trivia games, and while Monopoly is a good way to waste three to five hours (especially the way my brother plays), you can only play it so many times before you start dreaming about rolling double fives.

I’ve come down with a nasty cold that’s left my head feeling like someone’s been shoving cotton in it while I sleep, and my voice sounding like I smoke 15 packs a day. All of the loving attention my husband’s been giving me has made me think about comfort games.

Comfort games are the ones you play when you’re feeling cosy and safe, like when the power goes out or a snowstorm’s a-brewin’. Or maybe it’s the ones you play in the tent with your kids when it rains the whole vacation. Funny how all of this seems to be related to poor weather for me!

So, I’ve got reviews of three of my favourite comfort games (all of them found on my personal shelf).

Scrabble

This is a classic, and it is so for a reason. I’ve always been a word-lover, and the words you can learn trying to get that Q or Z on a triple word score are quite interesting. For kids under 8, it might be best to start with Scrabble Jr., which has two levels of play to get them used to the idea.

But if you’re feeling patient, and you’re willing to relax the rules a little, you can play this game with any child who can spell. Allow proper nouns and contractions, or include French spellings if your child (like mine) is in French Immersion at school. Or, abandon keeping score, and just see how many words you can make together.

Cribbage

I grew up with all of my dad’s family playing this any time they got together, for hours on end sometimes. My dad even went home to play an all-night Cribbage marathon with his brothers last summer.

For the un-intiated, Cribbage can seem complicated - my husband always wondered why there were two pegs used to keep score - but once you get the hang of it, it’s a speedy game. I reccommend learning by either playing online in a social room, or reading Hoyle’s guide to card games.

Once you’ve mastered the regular game, try this twist that my brother and I loved: Backwards Cribbage. A rule that can be applied to almost any game, Backwards Cribage is just like regular cribbage, only you’re trying NOT to get points, and the first one to the finish is the loser.

Kids as young as 5 or 6 can learn to play this with a parent, but I do reccommend starting by playing to 61 instead of the usual 121.

Tour de Force

This is a classic Canadian trivia game, introduced to me by my husband and his parents. It was created by Pierre Burton  and Charles Templeton. Waddingtons, the company that produced this game (and many others that I love) was bought out by Hasbro (or at least that’s what Wikipedia claims), so you’ll have to scour second hand shops and eBay for this one.

But it’s a beautiful game, played in teams of two or more (we often play old vs. young or men vs. women), and has lots of Canadian content. My favourite part is getting the special 10-point bonus cards… even though we usually end up going back five places.

This is a tough one to play with younger kids, but is a good way to get teens talking about the chanes to some of the answers (it IS 20 years old, after all), and the way they’d change the categories if they could.

So, as mentioned in the last blog, as kids hit middle school and those (sometimes dreaded) hormones start kicking in, social games become much more interesting.

When I was about 12 or 13, my uncle gave me one of the best games for a kid this age. It was called “Dweebs, Geeks and Weirdos”, which, as far as I can tell, is no longer produced. (check out http://www.amazon.com/Dweebs-Geeks-Weirdos-Totally-Awesome/dp/B000YPRY0K for used versions)

The gist of the game, is that you do a bunch of silly stunts to collect points and win the game. There are plenty of others in this vein - Truth or Dare is the one everyone knows - and they all go over big with 10-14 year olds, generally.

But the tendancy to favour social games isn’t just limited to doing silly things in a big group. It also lends itself to games like Pictionary, Cranium, and a Canadian TV classic - TalkAbout.

Use this trend to your advantage when trying to keep (or create) games night with your teens or pre-teens. Get them to invite their best friends over and challenge kids vs. adults (recruit a friend or two of your own, too).

This is also the age in which strategy games are most successful, since the ability to use logic is even stronger as kids enter junior high and high school.

You can start with Checkers and Chess, but if your kid is the kind to shrink from something so stodgy sounding, try Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan or Risk.

The beauty of those last three is that it adds a bit of character to the strategy. They all strengthen mapping and geography skills, too, but you don’t have to tell your kids that!

And for the kids who want a little of both, you can turn to games like the Munchkin series (by Steve Jackson) or Zombies.

From here, it’s not far to reach the world of role playing games. While I don’t play them myself, I don’t have a lot of problems with them either.

Dungeons & Dragons got a lot of bad press when I was a teen, but as long as you don’t find your kid playing nothing but, there shouldn’t be any cause to worry.

As always, the best way to make sure gaming is safe and fun at this age is to make sure you’re involved with your kids. If they’re interested in role playing games, get them to teach you how to play it, too.

Playing games with kids aged 6 to 10 is a lot of fun. For the most part, they can read, they understand how to take turns, and they generally have enough life experience to know that even if they lose this time, next time, they might win.

There’s an increasing range of games available for the elementary school set, too. Most of the classics have a junior version that works really well for this age - Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue, etc., but they’re not limited to these.

As you get into older elementary school kids, you’ll find that they’re looking to play the “grown-up” versions more often. This age range thrives on feeling that they’re older.

That’s why this is also a great age to introduce your own personal favourites. I suggest starting with the favourites because you’re going to end up playing these games over and over and over.

For the younger end of this age range, try games like Guess Who? that require some reading skills, but also introduce logical thinking. We’ve also had success with The Castle, a tile-laying game from the makers of Carcasonne and Settlers of Catan.

As kids approach 8 years old, introduce trivia games. One games I’m actually really excited to try out this year is the latest version of Trivial Pursuit that has three levels of questions.

Another good way into trivia games for this set is a verson of Scene It? that features a show or movie that they watch a lot. For instance, we have the Disney version. This gives the advantage to the kids, who have watched far more Disney movies than we have (or at least watched them more times!).

Also good with this age group are games like Life, Ratrace, or Cranium’s Zooreeka. Each has elements of collecting and/or trading, which kids this age really get a kick out of.

All of the games you play with kids this age are warm-ups for the full-out adult games they’ll play when they’re older, so any game that gets the whole family involved is great.

We’ve had lots of fun with Cranium’s Family Fun or Whoonu, and also discovered some classic “cabin” games, like Tock, Uno and Parcheesi.

The bonus for classic games like the last three is that there’s opportunity to play with grandparents and other older adults, since they are more familiar with them.

Once the kids hit middle school, social and strategy games become a more popular option. It’s also the time when they really start playing games with other kids. We’ll tackle those issues tomorrow.

My family loves board games. It’s not a coincidence. My husband and I have always loved them, and we made a point of bringing up our kids to have an appreciation for the whole experience.

Many of our friends who have children around the same age as ours have asked us how we taught our kids to sit and play games with us.

The key things, I think, are to start them young, and to be willing to adapt.

When our sons were infants, we often played board games with them in our arms. It was a great way to actually do something we liked while still interacting with our kids.

As they got to the toddler stage, it was an opportunity to teach them how to treat pieces with respect (read: keeping them from eating the dice or putting the scrabble tiles in our coffee), and also to model how to be a good sport.

I think our oldest son was not much older than 2 when he got his first game. A Fisher Price version of memory, I believe. It had solid cards that were easy for him to pick up and flip over, and they could be used in many ways.

It was around this age, too, that we started letting the kids play on a “team” with an adult. Their duties were usually limited to rolling dice, moving tokens around the board, and “holding” things for us that we would need for the game (money, the deed cards in Monopoly, etc.)

I really think that all of this fostered a sense of game-time as family time. We were spending time together, and enjoying it, and that’s never a bad thing to do as a family. Now they associate playing games with family time.

As kids hit the preschool years, playing games with them gets even easier. It reinforces lots of great lessons – turn taking, losing (and winning) graciously, as well as things like letters, numbers, and colours.

There are more and more games out there labeled 3 and up or 4 and up, but we always took these with a grain of salt. Before selecting a game to play with a preschooler, take into account how long it will take to play, whether the tasks are too hard or to easy, and most important for my kids – whether there are small pieces for them to play with and lose.

Since most pre-schoolers can’t read well enough to understand instructions, accept that you will be playing the game with them. It’s probably a good idea, anyway, because you may need to be the “judge” in any disputes.

Also consider shortening the game in some way, especially if it’s the first time playing it. Most really good games for kids this age only take 15 to 20 minutes to play, but there are some 4-year-olds who will insist on trying to play Monopoly Jr. Tell them ahead of time that you’re going to set a timer, and when it goes off, whoever is doing the best will win.

I’ll be doing reviews of great games for non-readers that I have on my shelves in the coming weeks (let me know if you have one you really want to hear about), but there are three games in particular that I would suggest immediately to anyone looking to play a game with a non-reader.

1. Candyland. This classic game has had a bit of an update in characters, and there are also several versions based on favourite TV characters (Dora the Explorer comes to mind). If your kids know their colours and can count to two, they can play this game.

1. Cranium’s Cariboo takes the learning a little further, with two levels of fun. The beginner level uses numbers to four, four basic colours, and the letters A, B and C. The advanced version uses all of the letters, four colours, and numbers to 10. One warning: the balls used in the games are very bouncy, and seem to be irresistible to little kids.

1. Also from Cranium (I love those guys and gals) is Hullabaloo. This is a great active game, especially when you have a houseful of kids on a rainy day. It uses sixteen different coloured and shaped foam pads with different pictures (and words) on them, and encourages them to move from pad to pad in silly ways. The voice that shouts instructions (from a special battery-operated speaker-thing) reminds kids that sharing space on the pads is not only allowed but encouraged.

Hopefully, this has given you a place to start enjoying playing games with your kids. Tomorrow, I’ll write about the next phase in kids games – the elementary school set!

Hello all you game-lovers out there.

Not “gamers” - I’m not into video games. No, this blog is all about the kinds of games you can play in a tent in the middle of the woods, in the living room in front of the fireplace during a snowstorm, or even outside with a bunch of energetic kids.

It’s about the fun, laughs, learning you can teach and share with kids of all ages through board games, co-operative play and other games that don’t require a computer chip.

I’ll be tackling ideas for games you can play with little ones that can’t yet read, right up to games you can play when the in-laws are in town.

I’ll give suggestions for good games to play at your next youth group, Beavers, Brownies or 4-H meeting, or at the family reunion when it’s too late for lunch and too soon for supper. 

I’ll review some of the zillions of games I currently have my shelves, and will gladly take requests and suggestions - I’m always up for a game.

Up first (tomorrow’s post) games to play with non-readers….