You see "Candy Land: A Child's First Game". I see my least favorite kiddie game of all time. This saccharine sweet, yawn-fest has been putting parents to sleep for generations. It puts the "bored" in board games. The only thing worse than this game? The Dora the Explorer version my youngest child received on her second birthday (given to her by my mother-in-law, who is also famous for giving toys which make sudden noises in the middle of the night for no reason at all). But because I am a loving and good mommy, I fake-happily played the game with my little one once or twice. And then three, four, five times. Until it became a nightly ritual. And not just one game; two, sometimes three. I found myself cheating when she looked away, moving my piece (usually Backpack or The Map. Why did she ALWAYS get to be Boots or Swiper?) or her piece closer to the finish. Not my proudest moments, but I was in survival mode.
Here's an interesting "statistical" look at Candy Land (complete with "recommendations made for preserving the sanity of parents who must participate in the games").

http://www.namics.nysaes.cornell.edu/news15/cootie.html

Yes, I truly loathe Candy Land; but it does serve a valuable purpose. As a teacher, I appreciate the pre-math skills of matching and sequencing. More importantly, there are the social aspects of turn taking, following an agreed upon set of rules, and winning and losing with grace. Which is why I suffered through untold hours of trip trapping up the colorful path to Dora's rainbow colored fiesta.

Mercifully, my children are both out of the Candy Land stage, but we still play games at my house. Believe it or not, we don't have a video game system; we're strictly old-school. Once a week, we geek out on a board games or card games. My little Candy Land girl has moved on to Chess, Monopoly, and Quirkle. My son is now obsessed with the game Risk. My husband and I have an ongoing Scrabble showdown (the poor fellow still can't accept the fact that I win EVERY TIME).

You may be aware that I have carried my love of games over into the classroom. I dream of one day writing an entire elementary school curriculum based on game playing.

 Why?

 First, there are the obvious academic benefits. Given a choice flashcards or a fun card game to work on addition skills, most kids would pick the game. Games help children detect patterns, predict outcomes, plan ahead. Kids quickly learn about strategy and luck.
Games strengthen skills in
 addition, subtraction, multiplication (Shut The Box, Yahtzee, War, Sorry, Trouble),
 logic, deduction (chess, Mancala, Mastermind, Clue, Othello, Quirkle, Guess Who?, Battleship),
money (Monopoly),
reading and language (What's Gnu?, Scrabble, Boggle).


More importantly, there is the social development:

Collaboration
Competition
Following rules
 Reasoning
 Sharing
Turn taking
 Honesty
Learning from experience
Taking risks
Understanding that sometimes your luck can change in an instant.
Understanding that you might not always win, but if you quit you will never win.
 Learning to lose and win with grace. 

Though board games have fairly rigid boundaries, I like to allow for creativity and flexibility. Don't like a particular rule? Come up with a new one. Just make sure it is agreed upon before play begins.

Want to make family game night a part of your routine? I've got many, many games that I can recommend. I'd also be happy to send specific games home with your child if you would like to take a test drive before purchasing.



Look at our little tadpoles! Well, not quite tadpoles, not quite froglets...tadpolets? Frogpoles? They've grown hind legs, and one little fella is starting to sprout some front legs, too.

Here are some of the kids' science logs ("Frogservations"?) from this week:

The students in our neighboring class were kind enough to let us borrow their teacher, Ms. Heidi, yesterday afternoon for some special yoga time. Look at these relaaaaxed bodies and minds. We hope to make this a regular occurrence!

Mid-year conferences will be on Friday December 7th
Here's our schedule. If you need to switch, contact the family with the time slot you'd prefer. Let me know about any changes.

9:00-Oliver
10:00-Annabella
11:00-Bo
1:00-Aidan
2:00-Jakob
3:00-Tani
4:00-Paul

 A picture (or 30) is worth 1,000 words.

 MATH

Annabella uses the "Hiss" game cards to construct a snake as long as her body. Harder than it looks!

Tani is making pictures using the pattern blocks and recording the number of each shape used.

Jakob is showing six different ways to make the same shape.

Jakob is working on algebra by guessing my rule in the "Function Machine" game.

 ART and SCIENCE
:

Add a few drops of food coloring to whole milk, dip a q-tip in Dawn, and swirl away!

MAKING PLAY-DOUGH

Aaaah, Play-Dough, how you regulate this class. Art, science and math all rolled up into a fun Friday morning!

Halloween in the Haunted Class was more fun that a coffin o' bats!!! On Wednesday afternoon we teamed up with Heidi and Gudny's class, divided into 3 groups, and rotated through some spooktacular stations.

1. Mad Science: Eerie experiments captivated our little ghouls. A jar of eyeballs, some dancing worms (well...they were supposed to dance...) and some flowers best suited for Morticia Addams.

2. Brains, eyeballs, teeth...all missing the bodies they belong to! Our slimy sensory and art center was messy, nasty fun. Where else can you make a bag of blood?

3. What's a Halloween party without a little fear? In front of a crackling virtual fire we heard the terrifying tales  of "In the Graveyard", "The Green Ribbon" and "In a Dark, Dark Room". Sh-sh-sh-shiver!

The grand finale was held in the parking lot with a cauldron of dry ice!

Other scenes from the week:

Mastermind:

Never played this code making and breaking game? The idea of the game is for one player (the code-breaker) to guess the secret code chosen by the other player (the code-maker). The code is a sequence of 4 colored pegs chosen from six colors available. The code-breaker makes a series of guesses. After each guess the code make responds with:

a red peg: guess is the right color and right position
a white peg: guess is right color, but incorrect position
no peg: there is no peg of that color in the code

    Check out this online version:http://www.web-games-online.com/mastermind/

It's addicting!



Geoboards:

We've been exploring shapes, patterns and symmetry on the boards for a couple of weeks now. As the kids enjoy free time making pictures on the boards, they are also discovering relationships between shapes. Some students have started making complex, overlapping designs and are learning to express their pictures in mathematical terms.
Though it doesn't compare to the tactile feel of an actual board and rubber bands, the virtual geoboard is fun to play around with. Have your child show you some discoveries they've made.
http://www.mathplayground.com/geoboard.html