Carl and I are both fans of games, and we want to instill that love in our children because family game nights should be in everyone’s future, right?
Trouble is, I have terrible patience with adults who aren’t quick at taking their turns and keeping the game moving. It turns out this impatience extends to playing games with my kids that aren’t Memory, Go Fish, Candyland and the like. Thankfully, Carl is a natural-born teacher and has incredible amounts of patience for things like explaining rules, strategy, logic and the why behind games. Too good, in fact – he taught Gemma the game of Mancala and after a couple rounds with him, I can’t beat her anymore.
Time for a game requiring finer motor skills and less logic – I’m well aware I can’t out-logic or out-strategize Carl in any game, and with him teaching our daughter I know I don’t have long with her either. Give me ping-pong any day and I will show you what’s what. In the absence of a ping-pong table, we love Crokinole.
Have you ever played this old classic? The goal is to flick your piece either into the centre circle or to remove your opponent’s pieces from the board, and it’s just good, clean, table-talk-allowed fun. Carl had been brushing up his skills for work (yup, sometimes playing games is his job), so the board was out and it was time for the kids to learn a new game.
He taught everyone, but the boys lost focus sooner than their big sister.
Then this face appeared behind Carl…
He quietly took up position…
And his little brother notices the available leg space too.
Aaaaand they’re off. Strategy will wait for another day, it seems.
Do you have any favourite family games? Especially ones that are fun for all kinds of ages? I picked up Twister last week and can’t wait to see how that one goes :)
hide and seek in the dark! not a board game, but anyways…. your kids might be a bit young still too,, but we loved doing this! You can hide in the most obvious places since it’s dark and the shadows are your friends!!!
Also..you and Carl sound like me and Ben with the speed of thought vs. extended thought! Ben also has heaps of patience for teaching. Which is good with him being a teacher and all. :)
My kids are 8, 6, and 2 and a half. They have been playing Sequence for Kids a lot lately. The youngest needs some help (just don’t tell her that!) but it’s fun.
I’ve never heard of that one, I’ll have to check it out! Carl is a teacher too – it’s a great skill to have carry over to their home life :)
The only ones I know who can give you a run for your money when it comes to Boggle are your sisters. I wouldn’t even try it. As for pingpong…them’ s fightin’ words ;)
Looks at Carl’s focus! :) I love crokinole but never think to pull it out, and backgammon too, which is one game I can still occasionally still beat dad at. I’m up for a game of ping pong whenever you’re ready :)
After your last defeat I’m glad you’d be up for another round ;)
You can probably beat him at Boggle. And maybe poker… he didn’t do so well last time; guess the old man is starting to slip.
Oh, he won’t play Boggle with me…anything requiring speed of thought I win…anything requiring extended thought he wins :) I need you to come play Boggle with me for some good competition ;)
I love games too! I play Crazy 8’s with my 4 year daughter and I just bought her Spot It! Junior for Christmas. We also love playing Qwirkle as it’s easy to set up and easy to play but still requires strategy. I also just learned how to play the game SET this weekend and I really liked it too (maybe because I won?) :) :) :)