Overturn

Several years ago (Has it really been five years?) I blogged about one of my new favorite games, Othello.  New because I had never played it as a child and favorite because this game can be played on so many levels.  Since then I have shared this game with my Elementary and Middle School Mathematics Methodology students every semester when I introduce "in a row" type games.  As one would expect, there are students who enjoy the game and others who do not.  However, this past 'Maymester' (a wicked, three week long, summer intersession) I taught Math Methods and my students LOVED Othello.  Even when new games had been introduced, if Othello was available they went back to it.  Several downloaded the Reversi game on their phones to practice.  We had an amazing and intense, albeit short, semester.  We also had fun.  So much so, that my return to blogging can be attributed to my wonderful spring term and summer term math students! We all just got so excited about mathematics, teaching and learning it, and especially playing games to promote those math skills and problem solving. 

Overturn, another "new to me game", was made by the makers of Othello.  Like many of my games I discovered it on the dusty shelves of a thrift store in Tennessee and for $3 it was mine.  I have been so lucky purchasing games at Goodwill in Tennessee- they're almost always complete!  Once I opened the game I realized it was a mix of Boggle and Othello.  Overturn is like Boggle in that the goal is to make words using contiguous letters- only in this game you place rings around each letter you use.  It is like Othello in that each player has a different colored set of rings (silver or green).  The goal is to use as many letters of your opponent's words in your new word so that you may flip their rings to your color. The winner is the player with the most rings at the end of the game.  It is quite interesting that the board actually consists of nine plastic plates containing four letters.  There are 18 (I think) 2x2 plates that can be arranged in an astounding number of arrangements so the arrangement of letters is always new!

So readers, have any of you played Overturn either recently or in the distant past?  what are your experiences?   

Boggle

I am back!  And this time we're playing Boggle!  Another childhood favorite, Boggle contains a tray with 16 squares, 16 letter dice, and a lid to keep the letter dice from scattering when you give the game a good shake.  My sister and I used to play this game for hours on snow days and later, during college, my dear friend Melanie would thoroughly trounce me (it was painful!).  I also shared my love of this game with my third graders in St. Louis. 

I would begin by drawing a 4 x 4 grid on the board, giving the game a good shake, and then writing the letters in appropriate squares.  Students then had a limited time (but usually more than the egg timer provided with the game- wait time is important!) to create as many words as possible using the letters provided.  Each letter may only be used once, and the letters must be contiguous, that is they letters must be next to one another and share a border.  For complete instructions, Hasbro has provided them via a pdf. 

One of my favorite schools to visit in St. Louis, the New City School would have these school wide, killer Othello competitions.  However, they noted that the boys seemed to make it to the playoffs more than the gals did (Please note this statement does not indicated that I think, feel, or believe that boys are more capable than girls!).  So the wonderful faculty decided to add a Boggle tournament!  Remember to share a variety of games with your students and children.  Some children are wordsmiths while others are spatially talented.  By playing a variety of games with them, you give them an opportunity to practice those skills in a nonthreatening way!

Captain's Mistress

It has been a long time since I have taken the time to post.  And much has happened since my last post.  I officially graduated with my Ph.D., accepted a friend's proposal, moved from Missouri to Tennessee, started a new "temporary" job, married this friend, learned my way around a new town and a new city, and finally... applied for, interviewed for, and accepted a "permanent" job at the same university that hired me temporarily.  It has been a very busy two years! 

Despite all of this change in my life, several things have remained constant- my love of teaching, my love of mathematics and science, and my love of games.  Luckily, my friend and husband feeds my love of games by shopping for them at thrift stores (even when I cannot be with him to help!).  This evening he totally scored big time with a "new to me" old favorite!  While shopping the Goodwill Store in Dayton, TN he discovered The Captain's Mistress Game for $1.99.  I found it on Amazon ranging from $35 to $46. 

It seems the game is hundreds of years old and that Captain Cook was so enamored of the game during long voyages, the crew began calling it The Captain's Mistress.  However, the game is not unfamiliar.  You see, it is simply the game of Connect Four played in a beautiful wooden box and instead of checkers, players use light and dark colored wooden spheres. 

Connect Four was one of my sister's and my favorite games to play as children.  It was also a perennial favorite of my third graders in St. Louis.  But the familiar Connect Four is hardly affordable (over $26 at Amazon) when you're attempting to purchase several sets so that many students may play.  What is a teacher to do? 

While teaching in St. Louis, collected a picnic basket full of travel games.  I purchased six or seven Four in a Row games from an "everything is a dollar" type store.  That meant that for $6, 12 of my students could enjoy Four in a Row during indoor recess or math class.  These games were small (about the size of an adult's hand) and the "checkers" were tiny.  To make keeping up with the small pieces easy, I place them in Ziploc sandwich bags. 

Are you not certain about the efficacy of using games like Connect Four or Tic-Tac-Toe in your classroom or with your children?  Constance Kamii and Mariko Naghiro share their thoughts about the Educational Value of Tic-Tac-Toe for Four to Six Year Olds here.