Qwirkle

Nearly a year ago I was introduced to a 'new to me' game by my seven year old niece, Ellie, and she promptly swept the floor with my ego!  She also got me hooked!

Qwirkle is so easy to learn how to play- just match the colors or the shapes.  But as you continue playing one quickly sees how sophisticated the game can really be.  You see, you cannot repeat a shape in the same color in a row or column.  Points are earned for matching colors and shapes, but bonus points are earned when you create a Qwirkle (placing six of the same color tiles- with the six different shapes represented- in a row or column!).  This was where Ellie began counting coup!

A few months ago I was lucky enough to find Qwirkle at a local thrift store (I have been so lucky finding games in tact at Tennessee thrift stores!) and all the pieces were present.  It only took a me a few minutes to reread over the instructions before I started up a game with my husband and his Little Bit.

Little Bit is only a couple years older than Ellie and like Ellie took to the game quickly.  Little Bit has a brain for mathematics (although she begs to disagree!) and sees the patterns easily.  She has trounced me a time or two as well!


Our brains are designed to seek out and find patterns in the world around us and this is a great game to do just that.  In addition to the patterning, players are constantly sorting and classifying their tiles to make the best, next move.  Qwirkle is worth every bit of the $20-$25 it retails for and I highly recommend this award winning game for kids.  Perhaps I'll be lucky enough to find another for $2.99 at the thrift store!  Or maybe I'll find the new Qwirkle Trio or Qwirkle Cubes!

Feed the Kitty

My students and family will agree- I adore playing games.  Especially games that teach math concepts!  On a recent thrift store run, I found an interesting little game called Feed the Kitty!  Feed the kitty is a great little 'dice' game that reminds of spinning the dreidel.  The game is appropriate ages four and up; however, I'd like to think I know some three year olds that would be able to play this game! 

The game consists of 20 wooden mice, a dish for the mice, and two special dice.  The dice have pictures of arrows, mice, a sleeping kitty, and bowls on the faces instead of numbers.  The mice are divided among the players and players take turns rolling the dice.  Pictures on the dice provide the direction for keeping, passing on, or placing your mice in the bowl.  The winner is the last player who still has mice!  Parents and teachers, this is a nifty little game to teach number concepts to your small ones. To find out more about Feed the Kitty visit the GameWright page.

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. 

Rain Gutter Bookshelves

Last night's discovery (Plate Rack Book Case) started me thinking about the reading, literacy, and children's literature classes I have taught over the course of the past ten years (Yep, this is my tenth year teaching undergraduates and graduates!). Every semester I share with my students the importance of displaying books for children so that the covers are visible. Children (and adults) judge books by their covers.

So just how does a teacher (new or seasoned) display their classroom collection in a manner that is pleasing to children and young adults without breaking the bank or taking up valuable floor space? Put your mind in the gutter. The rain gutter that is!

Making a rain gutter bookshelf is a fairly inexpensive (financially and timewise) endeavor. I just checked Lowe's and a 10 ft run of gutter is $6.96 and end caps are $1.36 each. Two 5 ft sections will cost you less than $15.00. Bargain! This idea has been around for several decades (This spring marks my 20th reunion from undergraduate school!) yet I have only seen them used in a scant few classrooms. However a recent Google search for images revealed several incredible links. Seems lots of moms and dads and folks who are homeschooling are using this idea!

(Photo via Trelease On Reading)

Whether your a mom, a teacher, a dad, a paraprofessional, a principal, or a favored grandpa consider using rain gutters to display books for the children you love and care for.

Home Stores A 2 Z has a delightful description of using guttering around the top of beadboard in their son's bedroom. Amazing!

Mama Notes blogs her experiences using rain guttering in her son's room. Great pictures.

Raising Olives has a great step-by-step tutorial with lots of pictures (a plus for me!) for building these handy bookcases!

Another how-two can be found at Disney's Family Fun website.

For teachers (usually early childhood) with lots of bookcases and cubbies, this teacher's husband added rain gutter bookshelves to the pegboard on the backs of these standard furniture pieces.

For teachers wanting a rationale (A way to explain to your principal just why you want to screw gutters to the wall on the INside of the classroom!) Jim Trelease hosts a great article written by a principal and kindergarten teacher, The Rain Gutter Literacy Revolution. Additionally Trelease shares excerpts from his Read-Aloud Handbook on changing the print climate in our homes, classrooms, and libraries (Trealease, 2001, Chapter 7).

What do you think? Have you tried this at home, church, or school? Send me a picture. Let me know if this has worked for you. Have fun and keep reading!

Trelease, J. (2006). The Read-Aloud Handbook, 6th ed., New York, Penguin Books

Plate Rack

While looking at a variety of ways to store and access wrapping paper (an odd pursuit on a Wednesday evening) I came across an interesting article at Martha Stewart. There she used an "ordinary plate rack" to display children's books. If you cannot find an ordinary plate rack, Martha provides directions for building a plate rack.