Rolling the Dice

The kids have had an extra-long holiday - they’re just back at school today - so last Monday, I came up with a great project to keep us from screaming at each other - tidying up the games shelves.

At our house, we have two five-shelf bookcases in which we store our collection. It was a complete disaster, with pieces missing or stuffed in odd places.

We took it shelf by shelf, going through each game and finding out what was missing, the kids helping out along the way.

We wrote down what was missing from each game on sticky notes, and the kids put together the puzzles to make sure all the pieces were there.

Then we went through what we call the “missing pieces” bag, which is a large ziploc bag with pieces, cards, dice, etc., that we’ve found around the house, and tried to put things back in the right boxes.

It took us two three-hour sessions, but we managed to get the kids’ games and puzzles done.

The benefit is that now they have easy access to all of them, and it’s so much more appealing to actually play a game when you know that all of the pieces are there.

We still have a big mess on the other side of the room in the grown-up games shelves, but I feel confident we’ll soon see improvement there, too.

I encourage anyone reading this to go through their own collection of games - there’s nothing like tidying up to make you remember how fun it is to actually play those games you haven’t touched in a while.

I got involved in a discussion recently about group games for kids. Actually, my husband and the other leader for the local Scout troop were talking about it, and I butted in.

Essentially, we agreed that any game that gets kids active and working together is good, but we’re all more interested in playing games that are excellent.

Games that are silly, noisy and active, yet add something to their lives or teaches them something - even if it is that playing a game does not have to be chaos.

Scouter Allan told us about a game he used to play with the Beavers, when he was a Beaver leader, called “Steal the Key”. All you need is a blindfold and a pile of old keys.

You select one Beaver to sit in the middle of the circle, blindfold him and place the pile of keys in front of him. The other Beavers take turns trying to “steal” the keys without being heard.

If the blindfolded Beaver hears him before he can return to his spot, he yells “thief”, and the key must be returned.

This game teaches some important lessons, including physical awareness, while having fun together as a group. You don’t need to tell them how to move quietly - you can (and should) let them experiment with ways to do that themselves.

Think about what that one simple act can do. By allowing kids to try things out for themselves, by allowing them to fail and to succeed, by showing them that you trust them to work it out for themselves, you can give one of the best gifts in the world - confidence.

The shy, quiet child who usually goes un-noticed and is picked last for races suddenly finds he’s really good at this game.

He sees the noisier children, the ones who can’t sit still, struggle with the game, then turn to him for help.

And those more active kids learn that asking for help doesn’t make the game less fun. They all learn that they can figure something out themselves - without interference from an adult.

There are dozens of excelletn games like these for kids and teens. The key is encouraging the group to work together, learn from each other, and recognize that everyone has something to add to the group.

These are skills that will help them succeed in all facets of their lives.

Dodge ball and tag are good games. They can be a lot of fun, and a great addition to an afternoon in a big open space with a bunch of kids. But games like “Steal the Key” give them so much more for the same amount of effort.

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.

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.

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.

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….