Saturday, November 15, 2008

Happiness is...

getting beat by your 6 year old at checkers! Dallin has always loved to play games. He usually goes in spurts and will want to play the same game over and over again. You would think this would get old, but I have truly enjoyed it over the years. As a 4 year old, it amazed me that he could understand counting and game play enough to beat me at Sorry. (Sometimes the winning card "magically" appeared on the top of the deck.) As a 5 year old, I loved the excitement that Uno brought with its faster pace and quick decision making. As a 6 year old he has many games that he cycles through. Ticket to Ride is a game we learned with friends and fell in love with, and I was surprised at how quickly Dallin caught on. He started learning names of cities and loved calculating his score as he went. It really improved his math skills and strategy. He also likes Battleship, Chess and Checkers. He has even suckered me into playing Pokemon cards, and I have to admit, I love his sound effects! He was taught Backgammon by Jeff and taught me the other day. I think playing games is one of the best ways to learn new skills. I was very humbled today when Dallin beat me in about 5 minutes, and I really was TRYING to play. I don't know if I should be proud of him or embarrassed by my lack of skills. We ended the night by playing Sorry with Emily. The cycle begins with her. She may not enjoy games as much as Dallin but I look forward to the one-on-one time it will give me with her. As the kids get older I look forward to many game nights as a family. Can't wait to teach Dallin Settlers of Catan!

How about the rest of you? Do you play games with your kids? Are they better than you?

New section on my blog: To encourage me to blog earlier and get a project done, I am going to list my "assignment" for the night at the end of each blog. Then I will edit it with whether or not I accomplished it. You don't have to comment on this, it is just for my accountability.

Today's project/cleaning: Church bags cleaned out and ready for church/downstairs picked up.

Edited to add: Church bags are ready and downstairs is clean. So, my question is, what do you have in your church bag?

2 comments:

ped crossing said...

We love to play games, but it goes in spurts. It is fun when you find a game that everyone can play. We like Zingo! because everyone can play it at the same time with minimal intervention. Sequence(for kids) is great too.

skbkmjfamily said...

We loved Ticket to Ride. They said the Europe one was a lot more fun. I am trying to find it, but at a better price. I love playing games, even though I came from a non game family.

I love seeing you post every day.