a couple of games...

Yesterday we took some time out of our day to play a couple of "school games".

The first game we played was Great States Jr..
The kids LOVE this game. It is very easy for all of us to play together. When you roll you land on one of three colors and pull a card of matching color. One color is about state names, so for example you may be looking for 3 states that start with N. Another color is state shapes, they show just the shape of the state and you need to find it on the board. And the final color is state pictures (I'm not sure exactly what they call it), each state has a symbol on it referencing something that it is famous for. The card tells the fact and shows the picture, then you have to find the state on the map. The game is great for Clara (age 6) but, even though he enjoys it, Alex is beyond this one. This game is geared toward non-readers and if they are readers, I wouldn't recommend it. Here's my beef with it... they list the answers on the FRONT of each card! Yes, they are in small print and upside down but now that Alex knows that they're there and how to read them, there's no going back. Maybe if you want to play this game with a reader, someone other than the person who's turn it is should draw and read the card (the answer is easily covered with a thumb). The instructions have each person drawing their own card so we've played that way for a while now. Its hard to change the rules now.


The second game we played was Sight Word Bingo. Nothing terribly unique about this game, but the kids enjoy it. Yesterday they added to the challenge by having some of their stuffed animals play too. So between the two of them they were managing about 13 cards. I like that this set has a chart of all of the words. This helps Alex with the concept of alphabetization.