Games we Play

We've been playing a lot of games lately!  Here are some of our current favorites!

With this Sequencing Game by The Learning Journey, we count how long it takes Little Guy to put together each sequence to see which one was the fastest (he wants everything to be a timed, counted thing right now).

We love, love, love Candyland.  It's Little Guy absolute favorite game and he wants to play it allllll the time!

We've discovered that Chutes and Ladders is a bit more difficult than Candy Land.  I think it's because it lists the numbers up to 100 and that throws Little Guy off when he has to move 5 spaces and as he moves his pawn and is counting "1, 2, 3, 4, 5," he might be seeing 27, 28, 29, 30, 31.  It gets a little confusing.

We've also been taking advantage of the High Five Magazine that Little Guy subscribes to.  They ususally have some sort of game or activity on the last couple of pages.  We made this fun matching game about Animal Babies and the Mamas.  It's played just like Memory, but instead of finding 2 items the same, you find the baby and the mama for a match.

When I asked Little Guy if I could take a pic of him with the game, he said "sure" and quickly got down into this pose:

I was laughing hysterically!!  I don't know where this kid gets this stuff.  He is constantly cracking us up!  You know how some people are funny because they work at it and and are always trying to be funny?  Not Little Guy.  He's just naturally hilarious with out even trying to be. 

We have this really awesome book, that's kind of like Brain Quest (sshhhh...I don't know if that's ok to say) but in a book form.  Little Guy loves his Brain Quest Cards, but he easily knew all the Pre-k questions before Christmas, and the Kindergarten (I felt like) he wasn't quite ready to try.  So Grandma bought him this book:



It's pretty great!  It's pretty much the same level of difficulty as the BrainQuest Pre-K cards, but it was new material so Little Guy loved it!  We did the first 60 pages before Little Guy got tired and wanted to stop.  By the way, if Little Guy is over something, we stop.  I never push anything, or else learning would no longer be fun and would become a chore.  That's the last thing I'd want.  That's why we are homeschooling.  It really works too.  Little Guy loves doing these fun workbooks and quizzes.  They are fun for him, and it's my job to help it stay that way.

We like to make up our own games a lot too, like this Quarter Toss game that you can read about HERE. 

Or this Jumping Jellybeans game that you can read about HERE.

Or this Alphabet Memory Match game I made using card stock and alphabet stickers from the scrapbook section. 

It doesn't take a lot of money or time to make up your own fun game.  When Little Guy was just beginning to show an interest in games, I used to make simple board games out of poster board like these Holiday Themed Board Games:

This Halloween Game used erasers as the pawns.  The object was to help the ghost find his way to the haunted house by Halloween.

For this Thanksgiving game, the object was to help the Turkeys escape from the farm to the forest before Thanksgiving.  I just used pompoms, pipe cleaners, and paper clips to make the turkeys.

This Christmas game was made using those tiny little cellophane wrapped present ornaments from the Dollar Tree.  Santa needed to get the presents under the tree by Christmas.

Cheap, easy, and lots of fun!

What are some of your family's favorite games?  Do you make any yourself to cut down on costs?