Family Fun

On a search for more 'family fun ideas' that got my kids (and me I suppose) unplugged from video/computer/tv this summer and involving some kind of craft I thought up this new 'game'

Not sure what we will call it yet, but here is how it went.

On a recent trip out to the store, I took a stack of index cards and a marker. Not telling my kids what it was for, I asked them to think of simple nouns in various categories. Food, stuff you do at school, things at home etc. They rattled off a number of nouns and I wrote them down quickly.

While at the store we bought enough play dough that each person could have their own color.

When game time came, we randomly pulled out a card, set the timer from 3 to 7 minutes and had fun 'making' the word on the card, trying to think out of the box if we needed to.

Here are the pictures from the first round.

Blue = J
Green = Mike
Red = Deonna
Pink = Dani
Orange = Me

Baseball bat: Notice J went out of his way and created a bat, ball and glove.  Deonna has bases and a man with a bat.

Beds: Mines a bunkbed. Look at Deonna. It even looks like the covers are rolled back. J's looks a bit like our bed, blanket and 2 pillows.

Boy:  Deonna made a boy face, Dani a well created boy body (although not sure about why it has 4 legs). J over achieved with a boy with a bath and a hat and a number 6, and Mike made sure we'd know it was a boy with XY genes.

Dani made a Lemon Tree, J made a lemon and a carton of lemonaid. My orange portrays a fish with lemon slices (really) and a drink with a slice of lemon. Mike made a lime instead of a lemon.

Rectangle. Mike made a rectangle snowman, and Deonna made a house with a rectangle body.

Wagon: Our last one for the night. Mike made a pioneer supply wagon. Deonna's has a person and supplies in it also. J's has a cute little handle that he spent 3 minutes working on, Dani got a bit upset at her wagon and the fact that it looked more like the Lock Ness monster. Sadly my little guy fell off the wagon....

Overall a fun game and it seemed like all ages were able to enjoy it (we've had problems trying to involve a non-reader into family game time)

If you try the game let me know!

T.

Comments

[Tracey]

Another fun idea to go along with that is to have the person (if they can read, if not, then 1 helper to help them read it) pick a card, do what the card says and everyone has to guess. You could make up a board, with whatever pieces you wanted (maybe you could make playdough pieces!) and for each correct guess at what they made, that person gets to move one forward.

I love this idea. I think I'm stealing it :) Maybe I'll even have the girls help me make our own play dough! Thanks for sharing your idea :)

[Meadow]

What a fun game! I will file it away and hope to play it soon :)