Board Games Popular at Home

Board/card/word games are a staple at home, some more fun than others depending on our moods. As I was sorting through the Games Cupboard, hoping to get rid of some old ones that kids have outgrown or not played at all in ages, I realized that I am not ready to part with any of them. So, I decided to list some of them here in case kids (and I) want to look back some day and feel a pang of nostalgia...

Apples to Apples is always popular, but needs all four of us to play to maximize fun. This was a gift for the older child from a friend a couple of years ago, and we stuck with it, even though Apples to Apples Junior might have been more fun for the younger one. The best memory of playing this so far is when we had a power outage due to storms last winter and we played this by candle light at the dining table, wrapped up in layers of coats and blankets.

Clue is the older child's favorite, and invariably she wins most of the time. I must admit, I don't pay close enough attention and never win.

Qwirkle and Qwirkle Cubes are not the favorite for the younger child, so he opts out, which makes it easier for the rest of us to play by the rules.

What's Gnu? was a casual purchase a long time ago, and has been a favorite with the kids when they were a bit younger. I am always the caller, and it is fun to see kids scramble to make the 3-letter word first.

Taboo can be a bit frustrating for the youngest in the house, but, he likes to keep up and play along as he has a team-mate, usually Papa. We do play from a smaller set of cards that have fairly recognizable words for the kids.

Good luck getting a favorite game out of this pile!

Risk and PVZ Risk are always popular with the younger child. He tries to rope in his friends to play PVZ Risk when they visit for play dates.

Word Yahtzee, Triple Yahtzee are classic no-fuss games we enjoy after dinner some weeknights to mellow down and transition to bedtime.

Mastermind and Battleship are perfect for the kids to play against each other. Some days, it goes quite smoothly; other days, it ends in a disaster. C'est la vie.

Monopoly is more of a weekend game, where we can set it aside and come back to it rather than going endlessly, especially with tempers flaring from having to pay high rents.

Scrabble, Scrabble Slam, and Upwords never stale, of course.

Boggle and Scattergories go in and out of favor depending on how each game goes and how frustrating it can get for the youngest in residence.

No Stress Chess has been a favorite with the younger child. While he knows the rules and the moves each piece can make, he gets overwhelmed by trying to evaluate the possibilities a few steps ahead, and that's where No Stress Chess makes it easier by having cards to help decide the next move.

Tapple is another fast fun game that is a fantastic ice-breaker game, equally fun to play with adults in the mix.

Chinese Checkers, Guess Who?, Snakes & Ladders, Candy Land,  and the classic staple Ludo all get their turn as and when we are in the mood for it.

Würfel-Zwerge was the older child's top favorite when she was a toddler and pre-schooler and I thought I can safely give it away because, surely, she must have outgrown it by now, right? Wrong! It is ever-so-pleasing to see these little elves in colorful outfits and fanciful poses. The older child still wins this game every single time.

[image source: amazon.com]

I-Spy Jar

Since their toddlerhood, Ana and Og have inspired me to create casual toys based on their interest at that moment, with things handy at home, nothing fancy.

The one that is etched in my memory is the Fill-and-Spill toy - any container with a lid and a slot on the lid to drop things inside. Oggie was obsessed with that activity when he was about one year old. I could just park him on the floor in my vicinity and go about my business knowing he will be occupied for 20 minutes at least, which is a long time for a one year old to focus on one activity.

I was casually clicking through some of my old posts here - just nostalgia, plus some late-night "alone time" - when I came across this little piece I wrote for Oggie. Ordinarily, I would dismiss it as Post-partum drivel, but, I do remember what prompted me to write it... and it gave me the much-needed perspective as I try to help Oggie through his Wild and Testing-Boundaries and Acting-Out-Impulsively phase that he has been going through lately...

Anyway, back to the I-Spy Jar. Oggie used to have something like this around when he was 2.5 or so but possibly because the size of it was not comfortable for his little fingers then, he didn't play with it much. He loved the I-Spy board books (Jean Marzollo), though.

About a week ago one fine evening he declared, "I want to do a project with you, Mama."

"OK. What project do you want to do? Build a toy/game/model? Create art? Make a book?", I indulged hoping to get to the specifics he had in mind, not realizing that he wanted to do it right then.

"I want to make I-Spy Jar like I saw in Ana's School for my friend now, Mama", he stated with finality.

"That's easy, shouldn't take too long", I caught myself thinking, knowing how some of his 'projects' seem to take shape organically and hence become quite time-consuming.

So, we talked about the materials we'd need:
Empty jar with lid,
Rice to fill the jar with,
a dozen or so little things to put in the jar to spy

I went with an empty plastic jar I had set aside for recycling - didn't want to use my glass canning jars - anything breakable, Oggie is sure to break it and I didn't want to be dealing with broken glass.

Oggie chose to color the rice blue and yellow and green - blue and yellow makes green.

He went about the house finding a few things he wanted to put in the jar:
Pom-poms
small bell
Lego™ man
smiley face button
flower button
large and small Wiggly eyes
Chinese-style beads
shiny glitter shapes - butterflies, swirlies, stars etc
feather
about 15 or 16 small items in all.

We filled the jar, a little at a time. After the first layer of rice, Oggie added a few of the items to hide in the jar. And then another layer of rice and so on until the jar was full.

I quickly tightened the lid and whisked it away to take a picture of the layered colored rice before he shook it all up.

And when I handed it back to him, "Can we go to my friend's house and give it to him now?" caught me by surprise.

And no amount of logical reasoning about the long drive to the next town, uninvited, at dinner time, seemed to satisfy him until I offered that we can take it to school the next day and see if the friend wants to play with it.

That was over a week ago.

And Oggie chose to leave it in school to share with his friends, which made me very happy - just the fact that it is something he made (with my help, of course) and the fact that he wanted to share it with his friends. It showed me that he feels some connection with his friends at school and feels comfortable enough to want them to experience the joy of his creation.

Spin the World Game

"Mama., I want to make a game for my friend, for his birthday. It has a Spinner that you spin to go around the world, to the planets and outer space. Actually, the Spinner is a rocket ship", came the excited words mostly in one breath one fine weekend morning.

"O...kayyy. What shape should we make the game? Circle? Square?", I casually indulged not knowing the impending...

"It is a triangle game, Mama. And it has 2 sides. One side is night and it is blue. The other side is day and it is yellow. The Day side has animals in it and the Night side has the planets and outer space", was the prompt and confident response.

With still no inkling of what is in store, I automatically quizzed, "Does it have a name?What is this game called?"

"We can call it Spin the World, Mama. Because we spin the rocket ship to go to outer space. Can you help me make it now?" hit me like a ton of bricks. I rocked on my heels while scrambling the eggs for the morning's nourishment.

"Sure. Let's see if we can find all the materials we need", I suggested noncommittally.

Thus started this wild adventure one weekend, directed (and micromanaged) by Og and executed by me, with close supervision (and the inevitable artistic tantrums) from Og, and complete aloofness from Ana.

Materials used:

Blue and yellow Matte card stock paper for the triangular game board and the spinner rocket ship
White card stock paper for the essential "Instructions" to accompany the game
Regular colorful markers, pen, pencil etc.
textured papers for making the 8 planets and the sun
Animal stickers
Plastic washer and paper fastener to make the spinner rocket ship spin
Glue and scissors
Clear contact sheet for laminating the game board

When this original game was built and ready to be tested, all laminated, with the spinner mechanism in place and working gloriously thanks to Papa's handy-ness, Og insisted that it was still incomplete: the instructions! How else will we know how to play this mind-blowing game?!

Writing the instructions was the most fun for me. I tried to make it as bizarre and vague as possible, much like the instructions we've found in some packages that were possibly written/translated by non-native English speakers. Tried is the key.

Also, the much needed picture of the game that does not quite match the actual game was the extra touch. And the arbitrary age range for who can play this game.

And the generic "Manufactured at a local plant"...

Og and I were feeding off of each others' wild energy that day, getting exasperated and excited alternately, but ended up creating something quite satisfying and novel. To us, anyway.

And, we did wrap it up and give it to his friend for his birthday. I hope his parents got a good laugh out of it and the little kiddo was suitably enthusiastic about playing the game. Over and over. Till it falls apart. Which might happen before his interest wanes (if it exists at all), considering the sturdiness of the materials used...

A Few Pre-Schooler Games

Spring Break went by fast, mostly spent indoors thanks to persistent rains that characterize our region.

Despite nine months of rain each year, scrambling to get dry in the 2 weeks of extra-hot summer, it is a gorgeous haven. Which is why most of us stay and grow the second skin of rain coats and rubber boots, sporting the slick wet-hair look and smiling wide as we towel off the slides at the park and letting the kids finish the rest of the wiping job with their bottoms so they can play in the damp sogginess.

Anyway, since last Winter Break and through this Spring Break, we've been playing a few indoor children's games, some of which have become quite a hit at home, prompting me to record it here. Most of these games, or some version of it at least, has been around for ages and many teachers and parents have used it well and shared their ideas on the web.

The games are more for the pre-schooler, with slight modifications for the kindergartner in residence.

1. Coin Bingo: Bingo is a fun game - I used to know it as "House-Housie" when I was little.
   
   
   
   For Ana, this helped learn her coins and try some math with coin exchange. How many pennies make a nickel? How many nickels for a dime? Can you give me coins to exchange for this quarter? And so on.
   
   For Og, I made up a simple grid. First few rounds were to introduce and reinforce the names of the coins and recognizing them. We only used pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. No half-dollars and dollar coins.
   
   It is a bit confusing that nickel is bigger than dime in size but lower in value, and that dime and pennies are about the same size, but for the distinct color of the pennies. Still, it is what it is and might as well learn it with all its inconsistencies...
   
   The game is simple: Give each child a paper with the coin sizes and values clearly drawn/marked. Give them enough and more of each coins to fill the paper. Call out the coin and have them place the right one in the right spot. Till all spots are filled. Oggie loves to scream "Bingo! I won!" when he is done.
   
   As an optional exercise, Oggie likes to sort and stack up the coins in his pile, naming them as he goes.
   
   
2. Letter Sound Match: I chose the set of consonants (and/or vowels) to focus on in each round and prepared the materials as in the picture: two sheets of paper with identical grid lower-case letters.
   
   We were focusing on letter sounds, for which I like to use the lower-case letters; but, can use this for the initial letter recognition by using all upper-case letters if preferred.
   
   
   
   The little squares of paper (blue bubble print paper from an earlier art exercise) have a piece of masking tape at the back to act as double-sided tape so that they can be easily removed from one spot and pasted on to another.
   
   The little blue squares all start out on one paper. Oggie gets two papers, identically prepared - one filled with the blue square, the other empty to begin with.
   
   As I call out the letter sounds, ("mmm", "sss" etc. no vowel sounds attached), he gets to find that letter on the blue square piece on the original sheet and move it to the correct spot on the empty sheet. We continue, one letter sound at a time till all letter squares have been moved from the first paper to the other.
   
   As an additional exercise, preparatory to reading, now that he has gotten comfortable with the letter sounds, I call out, "What does map begin with?" for the letter "m", rather than calling out the sound, "mmm". And so on.
   
   
   
3. Shapes and Colors Game: One of the versions of this that became a hit at home (even with Ana who is much too old for it) is this coloring game.
   
   
   
   Prepare the shapes - either print or draw. Our printer conked out last Fall and we haven't found it in our budget to get a new one so far, so, I've been preparing most of the materials by hand.
   
   The fun for Og seems to be the challenge of not just recognizing the shape in the paper, but finding the color crayon I call out among the open pile, and then coloring within the outlines.
   
   There are plenty of crayons, multiples of each color, so Ana likes to play along even thought she calls it a "baby game". So, when I announce that we want a "Blue Circle" they grab the nearest blue crayon each at the table and get busy coloring in the circle.
   
   After a while, I started throwing in a banana or apple or clover and such to the mix of shapes as there is only so much of circle, oval, rectangle, square, triangle, diamond, heart, star that Og can handle before getting too bored.
   
   And, as we go along, we learn about various shades and color names like teal, magenta, lime green and so on in addition to light and dark, refining and defining the crayon colors at hand. So that I can call for a "lime green leaf" or "magenta oval" and notice him reaching for the nearest shade he has learnt.
   
   Not only does it help colors/shapes recognition, I think it has helped Og practise staying within the lines as seen in the picture. Although he doesn't cover every millimeter of the shape, he does manage to stay within the lines. And the crayons are broken to about an inch or so, which helps his grip and prepares his hand for writing later on.
   
   
   
4. Scavenger Hunt: This is something Ana and Og compete and play with full gusto, with Ana getting mad and frustrated if Og manages to find the item first and stuff it in his bag.
   
   I hang two cloth tote bags in the kitchen, one for each player. Then send them on a scavenger hunt around the house to find the specified item and run back to put it in their bag first. Then, move on to the next item and so on till either they are tired/bored, or the bag is full.
   
   At first, I made it simple for Og. "Find something blue". "Find something that is round". "Find something that is soft". And so on. Then started compounding. "Find something that is green and makes a noise". (They do have a parrot toy that squawks and is green. Plus a green zhu zhu that squeaks cutely. And a few more that match the criteria I call out. So each can find one without fighting over any single item).
   
   "Find something you can wear in winter to stay warm". "Find something that bounces". As I make it more complex for Og, it gives him a chance to figure out and understand things in his world.
   
   This is one of my favorite games to conduct as I can keep them engaged while cooking or doing something else. I simply have to call out the next item and let them scramble to find it and bring it back. And it is even easier when I have a master list of items (pasted in the kitchen, handy) from which I call out a subset each time we play.
   
   Sometimes Ana fills in for me. Of course, she calls out, "Find yucky baby undies" and promptly Og takes off what he is wearing and stuffs it in his bag eliciting unmuffled giggles from Ana.
   
   
5. Mystery Bag: This is a simple game I try to invite D to play along with the kids when he has a few moments to spare.
   
   
   
   First, when kids are busy with something else, I go about the house and collect familiar items of various shapes and textures and put them in a small cloth bag that closes at the top so contents are not revealed easily. And have a blindfold handy for this game.
   
   When ready to play, we sit down in a circle and take turns. Each player wears the blindfold when it is their turn. Then opens the bag and picks out just one item from the bag. Feels it with their fingers. Then guesses what it is. Then, takes off the blindfold to see if they were correct. Then, passes it on to the next player.
   
   Things like pine cone, or a vegetable, or a hair curler, or a toy... each time the bag has different things, most of which are probably familiar to them, some of which might not be. Oggie doesn't keep the blindfold on, of course, and takes it off to "guess" his item.
   
   For some reason, wrong guess brings out peals of laughter. Of course, Ana gets mad if her guess was wrong... But, all in all a nice game to sit down and enjoy. Taking turns, being a gracious winner/loser, following the rules etc. are some of the nice things about this, much like any other game.

Kids Games: Scrabble Slam

Picture courtesy overboardgames.net

Remember the word game where we change one letter at a time to transform one word to another? Cats <-> Yarn, for instance.

Cats.
Cars.
Bars.
Bark.
Barn.
Yarn.

Of course, the challenge is to come up with shortest number of steps (like, Bars -> Barn above, skipping the Bark) in the transformation, in the shortest time.

Scrabble Slam™ is similar in that we change one letter at a time, yet make meaningful words each time. There are 55 cards which are distributed among the players (2 to 4 players usually). We start with a 4-letter word. Quickness matters. The player to get rid of all their cards first wins. Each play is not more than 15 minutes long.

The added advantage is that the cards each have two letters - one on each side - so, it should technically be easy to make a new word using one or the other letter. But, to me that adds a new level of challenge as the brain tries to come up with options for each letter of each card and tries to form a new word before the other person does.

Ana has taken to it, watching D and me play it on and off. She is still building her vocabulary, so, we are relaxed about speed and validity of the words she comes up with. This gives a great chance for her to put down a card to make a word and wonder is it really a word?, looking at us expectantly.

Of course, when she changes FACT to FART and beams, her unmuffled giggles makes it precious for me.

So, at her level, it is more vocabulary building, quick response, not to mention a fun way to play with words, more than winning the game by adhering to the rules. Now that she is beginning to enjoy it, I see a lot of potential for this game as a learning tool for her, and possibly for Oggie down the road.

The game doesn't really involve waiting one's turn to make the new word - it is fast-paced and high-speed in that one constantly competes with the others to get rid of one's cards by forming new words repeatedly. This poses an additional challenge as the mind tries to transmute a word on the table using the cards at hand, but meanwhile someone else has changed it already and we have to start the thinking process all over.

I love this game as much as Scrabble, if not more. Lacking the killer instinct, I play for fun, whereas D plays to win. So does his mom and his grandma, who always manage to beat me in Scrabble... despite that, I find it addictive and am glad I could get Ana started on it.

Kids Games: Guess Who?

Guess Who? vintage mystery/deduction game became a hit with Ana and me when we visited Nana recently - she had it ready for our visit. We liked it so much that we got our very own for Ana's birthday.

It is a very simple game: 2 players, each get a board with faces of 24 people, each having a unique name and clearly distinguishable features. The 24 faces on the board sit in slots that can be flipped up/down. At first each player draws a card which has the picture of one of the 24 characters on the board. The object of the game is to ask "Yes/No" style questions and guess the person that the other player has drawn. Whoever guesses first wins. And "guessing" is basically educated elimination based on answers to the Yes/No questions we ask.

It is explained in detail, and a lot better than what I am doing, here.

Ana loves to play this, especially with Appa. One evening, I casually checked on their game in progress and was smiling quietly when I observed this:
Ana: Does your person have light hair, Appa?
D: No.
Ana: Oh. I can knock down all the yellow hair and white hair people now.

That is the essence of the game, the strategy: phrase each question such that we can maximize elimination.

Questions we tend to rely on for initial round tends to be like: "Is your person a woman?", "Does your person have facial hair?", "Does your person wear glasses?", "Does your person wear a hat?"... something that would eliminate the population significantly each time, leading to the correct guess first, to win.

Initially, it seemed like it can get stale easily... after all, 24 cards/people and after 24 times (once for each), it can't hold much interest, right? Wrong. Each play is different, and asking the right questions for that play in proper order, not knowing anything about the person we are trying to guess keeps this interesting each time. Not to mention honing the deduction skills and studying the silly little faces trying to think up strategies...

Now, one little complaint I have is this particular version we bought needed assembly, is rather flimsy, has only 5 girls which leads to quick-ending plays if you draw one. The old/original version we played with at Nana's was much sturdier.

We have been quite selective about adding to kids' game shelf. Ana is just at the right age when she can understand and play by the rules. Candy Land at 3 seemed just right, even if she didn't start playing by the rules (and winning) until 4. Würfel-Zwerge is another great game for 3-4 year olds as it combines memory and observation skills to spot the right elf and claim it.

I remember a lot of board games from my childhood - some aren't even made anymore. What a pity. And my memory is so vague that I can't remember the name of the game, just a feeling, a shadow of a memory of how much I enjoyed playing it. One of them had a little toy soldier with a sword, we place him on a shiny smooth mirrored circle in the middle of the board and turn him; when he stops swirling, his sword points to something on the board, like a Trivia question...

Of course, there are tons of games out there - we have over a dozen that D and I like to play, Scrabble being top among them... am sure we'll be adding more as Oggie is old enough to join in. For now, this Guess Who? board game and "Guess the animal I am thinking of" verbal game are two of Ana's top favorites.

Kids Games: Würfel-Zwerge

This charming little kids game, Dwarves and Dice, was Nana's gift for Ana when she turned three last year. Also known as Le jeu des nains (French) or Würfel-Zwerge (German) the game is made by Selecta^™.

We've been playing it fairly regularly, usually at Ana's request. D is very sportive and with his busy schedule he always makes time on weekends to join in a game, even if for a short while... makes me nostalgic about the time before Ana came into our lives, when D and I used to play Scrabble (pretty close but he always managed to beat me!) or Risk or Trivial Pursuit or even simple old Boggle, just to keep the little grey cells active :)

It is a very simple game: 56 little wooden cards have pictures of dwarves wearing pants, shirt and hat of various colors. Three dice are rolled at once. The resultant color combination starts the race to find the one single card among the 56 in which the dwarf's pants, shirt and hat matches the colors from the dice roll. Whoever finds the matching card first gets to keep that card. And the next player takes turn to roll the dice and so on. The game has a few variations for older kids, but in the simplest version the game ends when the dice-roll results in a color combination already played (and therefore the card is not on the table anymore).

I fell in love with this game right away and haven't turned down an invitation from Ana to play so far. Ana is pretty quick if she is into the game, so, initially I take it slow and let her 'win' a few cards so she doesn't get frustrated...

This is not really a memory game, just needs sharp observation and quick processing.

The pictures of the dwarves on the cards are terribly cute with interesting facial expressions and poses. The first few times we played when Ana was three, she would just stare at the pictures and study them, not really getting the hang of the game. The colors are vibrant and eye-catching.

If there is one thing I would change about it, it is the same issue I had with Candyland: the red and pink tend to blend together in indoor light; I would make the red a little deeper and leave the pink closer to pale baby-ish pink. Invariably D confuses the pink and the red, and Ana and I have to help him relearn his colors :)

cut-out sewing toy update

So, whenever I get a chance I go back and update an earlier post with a photo or two - just for my satisfaction, my record... (and take the chance to correct any typos or miscommunication as well).

Turns out, a few times when I queried my parents they missed the photo updates altogether, reasoning, "We've read that post already - but if you tell us when you update it, we will go back and read it". Which seemed a bit tedious and counter-intuitive - I mean, what's the point in posting in reverse-chronological order and having them go back?!

So, I have decided, at the risk of repetition, posting the updates as a separate post:-)

[Finally, I am catching on to this blog-thing!]

Now, in my earlier post, I had written about the first item on Tharini's rainy day activities list that inspired me to make the cut-out sewing thing - a pig and a fish, out of craft foam sheet.



And, as this was the firs time I came across it, I naturally leaned towards using a yarn needle for letting Ana "sew" the holes in the pieces. And wasn't happy that I had to supervise closely whenever she wanted to do this activity.

Then I had a lightbulb moment!

I pulled out a shoelace from an old shoe of hers and started using it for "sewing" the foam cut-outs!



Seems like Ana likes this better than the needle. And, it still seems to provide the necessary fine motor exercise as she threads the shoelace through the holes... Mostly, she likes to do whip-stitch style - just bottom to top through each hole, which is fine by me:-)

Kids Games: Memory cards

Concentration or Memory is a simple game that helps improve memory in children (and adults). There are several versions of this game. Some involve objects, but this here is for little Ana, with home-made cards.

The cards are laid out face down. Each player takes a turn and flips 2 cards at random. If the cards match, they get to keep the pair. If they don't, they put it back exactly where they flipped them. The memory part is that, they should try to remember which position had which card, so, that as the game progresses, the matching act becomes less of a random guess and more of a test of memory.

For Ana, the maximum number of cards I use at a time is 12 - which involve 6 pairs, with each pair having a particular picture she easily recognizes and can match without any shred of doubt.

These are home-made cards, so, when I detect some wear, I make new ones. They are not as sturdy as the store-bought laminated cards, and the pictures are not as pretty and colorful.



Supplies I used: card stock paper, paper cutter, rubber stamps, rubber stamp ink pad, some construction paper and dye-cut punch, pinking shears, glue stick.



We don't use color cartridges in our printer, so, I didn't try to design graphics on my computer and print them out. At some point, I would like to print out just the black&white outline and color them, rather than using rubber stamps.

But, the reason I chose to use rubber stamps is so that I can make the cards with Ana. She likes to help me make things, even if she has no clue what I am making. "Let's make some memory cards, Ana" is all I had to say the first time, and when she saw me gather my supplies and settle down, she faithfully sat next to me, observing for a while, then asking to try and glue the flowers at the back and so on... Of course, I always go back and "adjust" it so it looks more uniform.

She is fascinated by the pinking shears and knows it as "Amma's soosuss" (scissors) and has her own plastic scissors with which she tries to clip her hair, her toys and such, of course, without success as it is just toy scissors.

And, while I try to rubber stamp her memory cards as uniformly as I can, she has a blast stamping on her "art" notebook. Her preferred ink color is the turquoise blue, for some reason!

Anyway, as she gets older, I hope to have fun having her design her own cards, and more of them - I can't wait to play with about 50 cards all laid out and trying to match them from memory with Ana...

D and I play with Ana. We don't really insist on turns, as sometimes Ana is so carried away with flipping that she does manage to get all the pairs. This can be played like Solitaire, so, if we can encourage her to get into this game, we could let her play on her own down the road and enjoy the "free time" we get meanwhile ;-)

Kids Games: Candy Land

D grew up playing many of the classic board games here and has been keen on introducing Ana to her first board game. So, he got her Candy Land - a game I had never played before and never knew about as a child.

Candy Land is very simple: Start at the Start, and as the game advances move towards the Candy Castle, which is the Finish. Upto 4 players can play at a time, each has their own pawn to move on the board.

Now, how does the game advance? Well, shuffle the given deck of cards and place them face down at the start of the game. Each player takes turns and draws one card. The cards have either one color block, or two color blocks, or a picture. The path is a rainbow path of colors - one color per cobblestone step that you advance on. The picture cards let you either jump forward many steps or fall back (falling back can be skipped for little players).

So, if you drew a card with one purple block on it, then find the first purple space on the forward path and put your pawn-self there. If you drew a card with two blue blocks, advance to the second blue space in the path towards the candy castle. If you draw a picture card like gingerbread or candy cane or licorice, simply advance to that picture space on the path.

What I like about this game:
1. Bright colors, baby-(girl)-friendly
2. Concepts of colors, color-matching, and counting
3. Simple rules and enticing finish (what little girls doesn't want to get to the candy castle and imagine herself to be the princess or something?)

What I did not like:
1. Glorifying candy in a not-so-subtle way, even if subliminally.
2. Difficult for small children to figure out which direction to move - the path is winding and has no clear indication
3. Orange is pretty close to red - at least the printed colors on the board - so, small children can get confused about colors when adult tries to correct them

Candy Land is a very simple board game, possibly a nice first board game for Ana. She seems to love the vivid colors on the board.

She has the concept of taking turns as we do it in other activities- like, when we are out at the park having fun and want to get a drink of water, I open the water bottle, let her have a sip and then tell her it is "Amma's Turn" and I take a sip, then she says, "Ana's Turn" and takes a sip and so on... so, it helps to know that. Now, there is no guarantee that she will respect and follow it at the game :-)

She also seems to have the concept of counting quite well, at least up to 5 or 6. I mean, she can recite her numbers all the way to eleven, in proper order, and recognize the numbers, but, as far as counting a given number of items goes, she seems to lose patience after say five or six and rattles off "saban, ate, ten" and gets it over with. But, this game just needs for her to know up to 2, which is a breeze, thankfully.

Of course, colors, she can recognize colors in English and Welsh, so, when she plays with D, she just calls out the card colors in Welsh! porffor=purple, melyn=yellow, glas=blue and so on. I couldn't remember half the colors in Tamil, so, I gave up teaching her colors in Tamil...

She is still a little young at two years and 4 months for staying focused on the game till finish, but, she seems to be interested - even if for short periods of time, before something else catches her fancy and she leaves the game hanging... which is fine by me. By about age 3 or so, she will get the hang of it and enjoy it more, I am sure.

What would I have liked to pick as her first game? The classic Memory game - well, we do it at home with just cards I make... but, it is not as sturdy, colorful and attractive as the manufactured ones.

To make a simple memory game, I use card stock paper cut to same size, and stamp the images on the cards: two cards will have the same identical stamp for finding and matching. I have many stamps like ladybug, fish, birthday cake, flower, seahorse and so on. So, it is easy to just stamp two cards with each rubber stamp and shuffle them and lay them out for her to play. Maybe I will dedicate a separate post to these memory cards one of these days...