Thursday, February 12, 2009

Game, set, Jack

Some days at around 7pm, stretched out on the sofa with a glass of wine in hand, the boy asleep, and the dishwasher humming softly, I wonder... what did I do all day?

Probably the same stuff everyone else with a 3 year old does: laundry, cleaning, cooking, chasing down stray socks and hats, and answering about a million "why" questions. Other than that Jack and I spend most of the day playing games. For Christmas and his birthday he received Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, and Cariboo. Hans and I prefer Cariboo because it is the most straightforward and the least competitive. Candy Land and Chutes and Ladders were frustrating at first, but after about 2 months of constant play Jack has totally picked up the rules and plays fairly (I won't play with him otherwise).

Now we've started to mix it up by combining features from the games (all made up by Jack, I swear):
1) Play Cariboo but instead of using the cards, utilize the spinner from Chutes and Ladders. If you spin a number that's not available, spin again and add the two numbers together. If that still doesn't get you a viable number, look for a word with that number of letters. Also use a plastic unicorn to open the gates, instead of the key that comes with Cariboo.
2) Play Candy Land with the Chutes and Ladders spinner. Whatever number you spin, move that number of your choice color (6 orange, 2 red, etc). I love this because I somewhat despise Candy Land and this makes the game go really fast. Can be played forward or backwards in this manner.
3) Play Chutes and Ladders with the intended spinner, only climb up the chutes and down the ladders. Oddly enough, the game seems to work better this way, because there are more chutes than ladders.

Is Jack ready for new games? If you have any ideas please leave a comment.

No comments: