Many of you know that I'm not just a homeschooling dad & pastor - I'm also a board game collector. So it's not surprising that I recommend that families play board games together... and that they purchase some as gifts! (Board games, btw, do an excellent job of teaching logical thinking, reinforce math practice, and develop interpersonal skills... all wrapped in a lot of fun.)
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Here's are three suggestions for the Christmas of 2008 for games your family might enjoy:
Sorry! Sliders - This is a dexterity game with pawns with small marbles in the bottom & a variety of boards & targets. Players score using Sorry!-like boards and smaller pawns. Children age 6+ have a blast with it - esp. since they can change the way the boards are set up to make 4 different games. And adults like it, too - at my last games club, we ended up playing 5-6 games of it AFTER the kids were gone. (This is available pretty much anywhere right now - the best price I've seen locally is Target - $15.)
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- Coolympics ($8.93) - a dexterity/race game with wooden Eskimos, seals & polar bears
- Keep It Steady Mini ($4.75) - a nifty pick-up-stix variation in a tiny container
- Marrakesh ($12.83) - a camel racing game that works great for younger (age 3-4) kids... a Jackson family favorite that is (sadly) going out of print
- Robby Robber ($13.30) - we know this game as Corsaro... but this is a more recent edition with a different theme. Either way, it's a cooperative dice game that I liked enough to help get included in the game book I worked on.
There are other great Haba games that aren't on sale:
- Bountiful Beetle ($18 - a dice game for small kids, esp. girls, due to the ladybug hand puppet)
- Castle Knights ($33 - a cooperative dexterity game)
- Dancing Eggs ($18 - a wild party game in an egg carton w/rubber eggs!)
- Kayanak ($33 - my #1 game on my Kid Games 100 list - see below - it's an ice-fishing game that is fun for kids & "big people")
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OK, a couple of more links for you to follow about board games:
- Like I mentioned above, I was a consultant on the new Klutz Press board game book, The 15 Greatest Board Games In The World. It's on sale ($12.65) at Amazon. You can read more about my involvement with the book in a blog post I wrote entitled Klutz & Konsulting.
- My blog, aka pastor guy, has a lot of different stuff on it - one of my recent series of posts is the Kid Games 100, where I'm counting down my favorite games for kids age 8 & under. Some of them are out of print & difficult to find but all of them are worth tracking down.
1 comment:
While I'm sure it helps that you're a frequent reviewer, Maukilo just has awesome customer service.
Here's an experience I had this holiday season.
http://bitterbetterideas.blogspot.com/2009/01/maukilo-customer-service-better.html
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