Games for sanity, or at least a little fun

Pleasant distractions are welcome, especially in this time of pandemic when we are trapped inside with the same people, day after day after day.  A recent New York Times article touted the value and joy of table top games.  Which is great, and it recommended a couple of good games (Patchwork and Japir), but they left out some of our favorites. 
We have a lot of games, as I've posted before, so I'm here to correct add to their list.

Carcassonne
Quirkle
Century Spice Road
Pandemic the Cure
VivaJava
King Domino
Xenon
Bonanza
Dominion
Wits and Wagers
Codenames
Las Vegas Dice
Dixit
Anomia
Geistes Blitz
Hey That's My Fish!
Gobblet
Trambahn
San Juan
Citadels
Sheriff of Nottingham

and so many more....

So how to pick?  I'd want to know about who you've got stuck in your house with you.

Want to buy a gateway game?  Quirkle and/or Carcassone

Party game?  Anomia, Wits and Wagers, Dixit, or Codenames

Need something quick and easy to learn?
Quirkle, Las Vegas Dice, Wits and Wagers

Some pre-reader or not-yet-fluent readers?  Remember, just because a kid isn't reading, doesn't mean they can't clean the table with you.
 How about Quirkle, Hey That's My Fish, Dixit, Gobblet, Geistes Blitz, Las Vegas Dice, King Domino, or Carcassone

Only two of you?  Try Gobblet, Carcassone, Quirkle, Hey That's My Fish!, Trambahn, San Juan, ...

For more details on each game and suggestions and ideas for more games, check out BoardGameGeek

If you want to play virtually with friends there are a few resources to try, TableTop Simulator and Tabletopia are some I've heard of.

Got a specific question or need?  Ask me, and I'll offer an opinion.
Let me know what your favorites are.  (but don't say Monopoly, please)

Monopoly Sucks

Our family loves playing table top games.  I'm pretty sure we have a game for every occasion.  I honestly credit games with helping our family stay connected.

I learned early on, when my oldest was 12 and our first exchange student was with us, that teens have little to no interest in hanging with the family.  If I let him, our 17 year old exchange student would skip family activities at every opportunity.  After a couple of months, I learned not to let him.  As part of that we instituted Mandatory Family Game.  The traditions lives on, even now years after that student left our family.  Not only have I not regretted it, but now that they are older our former exchange sons and my oldest have said they were glad for the family time we've had.  So, you should play games not just because they're fun, not just because they're educational, but because they can literally help hold a family together.

Have I also mentioned that it's affordable?  While most games are quite affordable, some can cost as much as $50 or even more, but when you amortize it across the number of times it's played, and number of people who play it, it's cheaper than water.  Think about it.  How much does it cost to entertain your family?  For my family of 5 we're lucky to get a meal out for $40 (and that's at a fast food joint).  A movie?  That will set us back more than $50 just for the tickets, plus the cost of the requisite popcorn and soda. Now we're entertained for what,  2 hours?   A game can be played many times, by many people.   $50 bucks (most are cheaper) plus a bowl of popcorn can be not just one family game night, but many, for years to come.  Pennies for hours, years, of fun - and way cheaper than family therapy too.

You can tell we love games here.  Lots of different games.  Games of chance, strategy games, bluffing games, all sorts of games.  But, not all games.

For instance, Monopoly sucks, more than a vacuum.

There I said it.  I hate playing Monopoly.  It lasts F.O.R.E.V.E.R.  and it's boring, anddddddddddddddddd ugh.

So when a friend said her family had tried family game night and it always ended in a fight, and her husband didn't like to play games, I wasn't sympathetic the way a friend should be.  No, jerk that I am, I said "Then you're playing the wrong games.  What games are you playing?"  Because I'm that awful person who means well, thinks they can help, and doesn't wait to be asked their opinion.

The old standbys that most of us grew up gaming are... old.  Some are still great, but honestly there's a lot more out there than many folks know about.

For my friends with the bored husband and fighting kids I suggested Coup and Bang Dice.  Both are bluffing games, involving lying, killing, and winning by being the last one standing.  These games are fun for both adults and kids.  You don't need to be a great reader to play them. They work for 4 or more players.  We joke sarcastically about these games' great family values - but the kids not only love killing each other (and Mom and Dad), they seem to get along just a little bit better after working out some of their aggression in a game.

We probably have a game for just about any occasion, and a wide variety of player ages, numbers, and interest.  I love to review them for you, but I hardly know where to start.  Help me out?

What is your family like?  What are you looking for in a game?

If you let me know, I'll write up a post with some ideas that just might fit the bill.

Math Day

I am getting excited about planning a Math Fun Fest Day for our local homeschool group. We were calling it "Math Salon" but that just didn't capture the feeling I have about it.

I am envisioning a place with different stations set up, manned by parents and older students, like at a children's hands on museum. All the stations would have some fun math related activities to do.

Here are some ideas I had:

3D spacial table - w/ things like perplexus and tetraxis
Game table w/ games, there's so many of these we'd have to break them up into themes - Set, Quirkle, Rush Hour, ...
Tiling activities - like fractiles, blokus, pentomino,
Puzzle table -
Oragami table with instruction books and some folded inspiration
History table(s) - with Babylonian, Egyptian, Roman and Arabic examples and puzzles
Chess table with sets set up to play, chess puzzles, etc...
Story table with selections from Living Math reading list - this could be one where a host read to kids, kids read to themselves, or parents read with their kids
Family math table with math games from the book
Music table(s) - pitch and rhythm are both very mathematical, but what exactly to put out?

A friend suggested Bucky balls and Zome Tools.

And here are some a friend emailed to me:

Vi Hart's videos are full of interesting ideas.
I got really excited about stars for a while, and wrote a Logo program to space N ticks evenly around a circle, so that I could print them out as templates for star doodling.  Her other stuff is neat too.

Calculating pi by measuring various round objects and doing the division is
pretty fun and really helps kids understand the meaning of pi.

Playdough for fractions?  Make a ball, cut it into wedges like an orange,
talk fractions.

Laminated hundreds charts are fun for coloring patterns on.

Older kids could make paper slide rules and learn how they work.

Roll 2 dice and graph the rolls to see if we could generate a bell curve.

Build paper models of platonic solids (printable templates @ Wolfram)

And here is some inspiration for the web:
Constructing the Universal Classroom



What ideas do you have?

Quickie - new finds

You know how I like audio lectures and books, right? I'm discovering podcasts. I've already posted about Grammar Girl, well, look what I found - The Math Dude!

These are great to down load and play while driving around town. It's amazing how much even my little ones pick up. They absorb some of it, and we have great discussions about what they don't.

Give it a try and let me know what you think.

Tonight we played Snow Tails. Very fun, quick, playable by anyone who can add and subtract, and good for getting faster at that. I still didn't win though. Hmph.

And check this out
Math is not linear

My favorite bit? "Be less helpful" :-) Think about it.

Grown up games for older kids

You might have some idea that games can be educational. After all there are word games like Scrabble, Boggle, and Huggermugger. There are quiz games like Trivial Pursuit and "Are you smarter than a 5th grader". Hey, quizzes must be educational since they happen in school right? ;-)

Well, let me tell you, there's something even better out there. If the last game you remember playing was something like Monopoly or Sorry, you've been missing out on some great stuff.

All the games listed here are within reach of my 8 year old, yet enjoyed by this 40 something.


Settlers of Catan - a resource building game that started many folks on Euro games.

Carcassonne - build a medieval world in this tile laying game.

San Juan - We played this card game last summer when we were on the sailboat for 2 weeks. I never got tired of it.

Dominion - another card game I don't get tired of.

Alhambra - build a castle using tiles purchases with cards, way more fun than I make it sound.


There are many more Euro style games out there, these few are just some of the ones that my family have enjoyed.

games for the younger set

Games have snuck into our family and homeschooling from the beginning. First unintentionally, and then, bowing to the inevitable, intentionally. In one way or another all games are educational. Some teach math concepts, some logic, some language concepts. All give opportunities to practice turn taking, good sportsmanship, and other social graces.

When the kids were little (2-4yo) we started out with stuff like "Hi-Ho Cherrio", "Chutes and Ladders", and "Candy Land". Just a year or two (4+yo) after that we moved onto "Uno" and "Set" that are enjoyable at any age. I found Boggle Jr. and Mastermind at local thrift shops. Boggle Jr. doesn't get used as intended, but who cares? We enjoyed Mastermind until we figured out the algorithm to always win.

This last year we've found some games that the whole family (ages 5-90) can play together and enjoy. (As opposed to "Candyland", which makes my eyeballs bleed. Shudder.) So, if you're looking for games for the very youngest that are actually enjoyable for you too, here are some to try.


Qwirkle Use shapes and colors on foam blocks to form a "qwirkle", a line of six blocks that has all the same or all different of a given aspect. (similar to Set)

The Yoga Garden Game This is a cooperative game that uses/teaches simple yoga positions and also gives players the opportunity to make up their own. It's pretty fun to see what positions the kids make up. Of course, then you have to do the pose - given how flexible kids are this can be challenging, and amusing. :-D


Apples to Apples Jr. This uses storybook knowledge (as opposed to the pop culture knowledge of the original) to make funny associations.

Blokus - uses colored tiles to pave areas. We vary the rules to allow the youngest to play.

Pitch Car The basics of physics and patience are learned with this game.

Hey! That's my fish! All out favorite here. Deceptively simple to learn and play, devious strategies can be invented to win.

Buzz Word Jr. This is one I was surprised to find my kids like. They get very.... creative. :-)

The aMAZEing Labyrinth Your opponents change the maze on each turn as you try to find your way through to locate an object. It's a fun and different game every time.

Hullabaloo (borderline, can only play a couple of rounds before the eyeball thing)

What are some of your favorite family games?

Visual games/toys

Cindy of "Apple Stars" categorizes Right Brained learners in to types.
All of my boys seem to have some "builder" type traits. Here are some wonderful distractions that they have enjoyed and that I think other builder/visual learners would like.

Fractiles, magnetic tiles that fit together on a magnetic board to make beautiful, interesting, and mathematical patterns. Art worthy, but has small edible-sized tiles.

We bought Zome Tool before we even had children. It is rods and balls that fit together to make shapes intriguing and, alas, fragile. Warning, these are addictive. You'll need more than one set if you want your kids to share with you. Also, it has small parts, so if your toddler or dog eats small bits, you'll want to be careful.

Puzzellations, magnetic backed foam shapes that tile to make patterns.

LEGO Create-it, a board game that apparently isn't being made anymore, so now I'll describe it and you can decide if it's worth making it. There are several cards with parts illustrated and instructions to make a small vehicle. Each person gets a card. Turns are taken and dice rolled to move around a board and determine number (if any) and color of lego pieces that make be acquired each turn. When you have all your parts, build! Hmm.... never mind, just give the kids some dice and the LEGOs and see what happens.

Blokus, tiles shaped a little like pentominos. This is fun played according to the rules, with your own made up rules, or just to make pretty designs.

Tessera, the perpetual puzzle, another one we got to play with before the kids grew into them. Our set is sturdy and elegant. I wish we'd bought more. With 3 kids we don't have enough for everyone to use at once, and I haven't seen any exactly like them for several years.

And, on the anti-recommend list is a recent thrift store find, Lost in a Jigsaw II. This is a 515 piece jigsaw puzzle with every piece fitting every other piece. AND the picture is such that it can be put together wrong and still look fine from a distance! We are ripping out our hair. My eyeballs are bleeding. I think I'll regift it to a puzzle loving in-law. :-D

Games!

At the request of a friend I'm posting today about games.

As we started homeschooling I began to realize how great games were with kids. Games teach turn taking, rule following, math, probability, reading, planning, consequences, sportsmanship, and so much more. Perhaps most importantly games give kids and adults a place to meet and play together. Any time spent enjoying each others company is a win/win, add to that the possibility of kids beating adults and you've got a carrot that few kids can resist.

I remember playing Monopoly, Scrabble, and a board game called "Dungeon" growing up. Go Fish, Old Maid and Uno were the extent of my card game experiences. Now we've embraced many difference games. From those that included all ages, to those that enjoyed by mostly adults and older kids, we are constantly finding new (to us) great games.

We've got a closet full of games. Maybe someday I'll review them all. Or not. Until then Gameboard Geek is a great site for game reviews.