Archive for category: Games

Here’s a fun game we were playing at the dinner table recently. It’s called “Connections,” and it’s great to help with creativity and get the blood flowing to the ol’ brain cells – not just for your kids but for you, too.

You start. You name two objects that seemingly have no connection to each other. Your child has to somehow connect the two objects in a logical way.

Here’s an example:

You: An electric oven and a tree.

Your child: The electric oven is based on the wood-burning stove. Wood comes from trees.

Then, it’s your child’s turn:

Your child: Snow and Florida.

You: That’s a hard one. Um, there’s no snow in Florida?

Your child: Aaaaaaang! (Buzzer sound). No way - try again!

You: In Florida, they have a hockey team called the Panthers. If one of the players stops really hard on the ice, his skate blades will create some… snow!

Your child (giggling hysterically at your ineptitude at this game): Oh man, mom–you were really reaching on that one! OK, I’ll accept that answer even though it’s awful. Your turn.

And on it goes.

The great thing is that there are no rules. Together you decide what’s acceptable and what isn’t.

And the other great thing is that often it’s harder to be the person coming up with the two objects than it is to be the person connecting them.

And the other great thing is that it’s all using your brain and having a good time doing it.

And then all of you can go and rent that Will Smith movie “Six Degrees of Separation.” No, wait – don’t do that. Highly inappropriate for kids. But you can watch it again when your kid’s asleep. Great flick. And, an excuse to have Will Smith’s picture on this post. Sigh.

They’ve finally come up with a new, addictive, fun and brain-saving type of jigsaw puzzle that kids will actually enjoy.

It’s difficult – if not downright impossible – to explain exactly how Ji Ga Zo works. You have to try it for yourself, and you’ll understand. (Which is why I asked Hasbro to send me one – I couldn’t figure it out from the literature and now I know why.)

Here’s what Ji Ga Zo (worst. product. name. ever.) is:

1) A puzzle that you create from your own photo.

2) A game in which you (or your kids) have to find pieces with specific icons on them and locate where they go using a grid (the “acorn” goes on A-15).

3) A game that teaches “orientation” since every piece can be fitted into the puzzle rightside-up, upside-down or sideways—and only one of those options is correct for each piece.

This is the icon board. Kids have to find the pieces that match up to these icons, and put them in place.

4) A puzzle that can be reused over and over again, with any picture you choose.

It’s a little hard to believe, isn’t it? I’ll try to explain it.

First, you choose a photo you’d like the puzzle to be. It can’t be just any photo—faces work best, and even they need to be close up and high-contrast. You put the Ji Ga Zo (how I hate that name!) in your computer and follow the very simple instructions to create an “icon board” for your specific photo.

You print out the icon board, which is a grid containing 300 one-centimetre squares. Each square contains an icon: it could be a house, a duck, an exclamation mark.

Then, you create the puzzle by finding the appropriate icons and fitting them onto your puzzle space according to the icon board… this sounds ridiculously difficult. In fact, it’s very easy—it’s just really, really hard to explain.

Ji Ga Zo (seriously, Hasbro, you couldn’t have called it Re-puzzler because it’s reusable or Griddle because it’s a puzzle with an icon grid? And these are just off the top of my head!) is very addictive and quite soothing. Harkens you back to those days when you and your mom would sit in the kitchen doing a puzzle, something we rarely take the time to do these days. And because it’s a puzzle of your child’s face, you’re more likely to want to continue making it until it’s done. And so is your kid.

The puzzle pieces are very sturdy and fit nicely together. There’s none of the wiggle-wobbling and coming apart so common to cheaper puzzles.

And you can make it easier for younger kids by sorting the puzzle pieces according to colour. Really young kids can simply help you find the pieces, which they’d find really fun. Slightly older kids can find pieces that are sorted by colour and try to find them on the grid. Older kids can do the whole thing, with or without your help.

The image itself is going to be sort of abstract. It’s not going to be a great representation of your child’s face, because it’s actually made up of shadow and light. Again, you have to see it to understand. And if you don’t have a photo you want to use, the game comes with a few including the Mona Lisa.

So here’s what I recommend. Don’t hesitate to buy Ji Ga-whatsit. It would be good for a birthday present for a party your child’s going to, or a present from gramma for your own kid. And it’s definitely got some great learning components. And it’s fun.

Once I find out from Hasbro how much it costs and where to buy it, I’ll let you know. In the meantime, I’m thinking of offering a contest to rename this thing…

Update: Hasbro got  back to me… $24.99. Name’s staying.

Use Valentine’s Day as an excuse to do some fun literacy activities. (From ABC Canada.)

1. Think of words that rhyme and write a poem for a loved one.

 2. Create personalized Valentine’s Day cards and write each other loving messages. Cut out words and letters from magazines to make them extra unique.

 3. Bake Valentine’s Day cupcakes and use candy heart notes or icing to write a sweet message.

 4. Play a “Valentine’s Day edition” game of Scrabble and score double points when you spell a word about love.

 5. Show your kids you love them by reading a love-themed book together, like Clifford’s Valentine’s Day.

6. Research the meaning behind Valentine’s Day.

Holidays provide a great opportunity to incorporate creativity and imagination with fun literacy-related activities to be enjoyed individually or as a family. Benefit from literacy by spending 15 minutes a day reading, writing, playing a game or following a recipe.

By Nancy Miller

Here’s a fun activity that can take five minutes, or roll out to 10 or 15.

The goal here is to have fun with words — and encourage your kid to get reading!

Play on Words
This activity uses three major learning styles:
• visual: they see the words.
• aural: they hear the words.
• kinesthetic: they act out the words

Here’s how to play:
1. Ask the child to say his name and what he likes to do. For instance:
“My name is Fraser. I like to swim.” (or ride my bike, or run, etc.)

2. Write down the answer in large letters.

3. Then together, pretend you’re swimming hard (lie across a chair and kick your feet while stroking with your arms; diving… make sure there’s lots of action!)

3. Read the words aloud, pointing to each word. Read the words together.

You can also extend the learning:
*Do the actions again. Then ask your child to pick out the words that go with that action.
*Keep a record of the words.
*Later you can also cut out pictures to go with the activities; this is excellent for reinforcement.

Variations
Other times, pretend:
*Animals; “My name is Fraser. I am a lion.”
*Vehicles: “My name is Fraser. I am a train.”
*Sports: “I like to play baseball.”

This will work with whatever your child’s interests are.

This activity is a shortened version of a longer learning-to-read program. If you would like more information on the program, please contact: Nancy Miller at millerneighbour@rogers.com.

Oh my, this one’s tricky!

If you have a kid who’s a real fan of puzzles, he’ll love the newest Blocks With Letters On online game – their third in the series.

Once again, you have to figure out what word the jumbled letters spell, and then try to manipulate the blocks into the yellow squares.

Sometimes you need to flip the blocks and sometimes you need to temporarily fill a hole with one block and then slide another block over it. You always need to plan ahead, thinking about how the letters need to line up in order to spell the word.

The graphics are very silly and cool, and after every time you spell a word correctly, a little animation plays that depicts the word.

This version of the game is very tricky, so it’s not for young kids but teens who love puzzles will definitely find it intriguing. I noticed that on the BLWO games website they also have a version for the iPhone. Fun!

Here’s an earlier post about the previous two BLWO games.

Don’t you wish there was a board game that encourages literacy – but which your kid would actually enjoy?

The five tiles each display a letter. You have to arrange them into words. For instance, if you get P-A-C-E-S you could make PACE, PACES, ACE, ACES, SEA, APE, APES and so on. You shuffle the tiles around to make as many words as you can in 60 seconds. After you make a word, the tiles flash to signify that your word is acceptable. If it’s not a word, it won’t flash and it won’t count. You can create three, four or five-letter words, although five seconds are added to the clock every time you create a five-letter word.

By Julia Mohamed

The next time you go grocery shopping, make it a more educational, enjoyable and literate experience for your kids with a Supermarket Scavenger Hunt!

1. Give each child a list of items to gather. Be as specific as possible (include a brand name, size, etc.) For instance, you might put:
□ One 18 oz jar of Kraft Crunchy peanut butter,
□ Three small green zucchinis,
□ One loaf of Dempsters 100% whole wheat bread.

It helps if your list is divided into categories, such as produce, meat, canned foods and, of course, snacks. That way, the kids will be in one specific area of the store at a time and you can keep an eye on them more easily.

For older children, throw in a few challenging items, such as ethnic foods. For instance, One jar of Red Shell Teriyaki sauce.

2. As each child brings you items, check to make sure they’ve picked out the right ones. If not, send your troops back out into the field.

3. Reward your kids with a healthy treat!

You can continue this activity when you get home. Include them when you’re making dinner by asking them to read out the ingredients in your recipe to you.

You’re going to have to go grocery shopping anyway, and you know it’s always a hassle. This great game is fun, it gives the kids a bit of freedom, and it gets them reading. A win-win! (Just do keep your eye on them, eh? I don’t want to be getting any letters from parents saying their kids were lost for days in the zucchini aisle…)

Julia Mohamed is a freelance journalist. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.

Our family recently took an 11-hour car trip.

And guess what we did in the car? Played Julia’s License Plate Game.

It was great! First of all, it took our son away from his DS video game (curse you, Pokemon!).

Secondly, it did exactly what Julia said it would – it got us creating goofy sentences and thinking about words. When you have to create a phrase with the letters “FTP” you realize there are so many possibilites.

It’s funny, but the first phrase you create sticks in your mind, like “Frogs top poles” and you can’t think of any word for the letter F other than frogs.

But then someone else comes up with a completely different word for F. My husband said, “For the people.” And that created all kinds of new possibilities for us. Then we started on a bunch of “For the” sentences and that was really funny. “For the penguins.” And then we morphed that one: “Free the people.”

“Free the penguins!” (I just thought of that last one.)

Heehee. Fun game.

And no, incidentally, none of us ever thought of “that” F word. For pete’s sake, people.
Photo: Sean Mack, Wikimedia Commons.

My son’s friend likes to play “air mail” whenever he comes over on a playdate.

It’s a great game and I know that it works on their literacy skills because I’ve seen improvements. It involves a bit of the adult’s time, but it’s such a fun game that I indulge them whenever they ask me to play.

Here’s the game:
The kids run upstairs and hole up in their bedroom.
They each, or together, write a note to me on a piece of construction paper.
Then they run downstairs and throw the note in my general direction – and then run giggling, like criminals, back upstairs where they slam the bedroom door.

So we’ve got lots of good elements here. There’s some kind of “chase” which involves getting the note to the adult without being seen. The adult can add to the excitement by either pretending not to see the note, or suddenly flinching in the child’s direction as through he’s going to chase them.

The first note from the children will be something like:
“We want a snack!” or “Ask us a question!”

Then the adult writes a note on the other side of the paper. I usually try to get some kind of dialogue happening, like: “Ask the Oracle a mysterious question.” Last time, I tied two snack bags of jelly candy onto the note and then pitched it at their bedroom door where it made a very satisfying – and disconcerting – thump. That was the kids’ cue to gingerly open the door to see if I was still there (I wasn’t) and retrieve my note.

If you can picture it, there is a lot of silliness, giggling, whispering between the kids and slamming of doors. There’s a lot of running up and down the stairs and a lot of suspense about what the note will say, whether they’ll get caught sending or retrieving their notes and whether they’ll get a treat.

In the meantime of course, there’s reading and writing. And I don’t make it easy for them. I use big words and I make sure there’s a pay-off for reading and understanding each message.

For instance, in our most recent game “Ask the Oracle,” the kids’ second note didn’t include a question. I figured they probably didn’t know what an Oracle was. So my next note told them to look the word up in the dictionary to find out what an Oracle could do for them. There was a pay-off to using the dictionary (because Oracles are cool).

Sometimes I make my notes into paper airplanes and throw them at the bedroom door. Sometimes I load them with a treat or even carrot sticks. Usually there’s a payoff for them writing another note back to me—maybe it’s a knock-knock joke they’ll have to ask for the answer to. Or sometimes it’s a nugget of information that they have to ask for more details about. Just something to keep the game going and keep the kids reading and writing. And giggling.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons, by Akkana.