Playing Games The Old-Fashioned Way

Now that we are full-swing into the year-end holidays, the girls literally have a lot of time on their hands after a very busy and intense school year. They did not have any holiday programmes this time round, and they spent their long days luxuriously, without any schedules or objectives.

And that was how I remember my own school holidays as a kid too. There were no tuition in the holidays back in those days, not a lot of play dates and definitely no holiday enrichment programmes! So, I would spend my long days with my brother, cooking up ideas to play with - ranging from us being pretend DJs and recording countless radio programmes (on cassette tapes!) to playing restaurant or clinic. All I remember of those days was our unfettered happiness and carefree spirit. And I want the Bees to remember their school holidays in the same way too - unshackled and free!

So, they spent their days doing what they want. This is also an especially busy time at work for me, so they were literally left to their own devices the whole day. I am glad my mother is a great help though. She always believes in healthy, robust activities conducted in the great outdoors which do not involve paying, so she would bring them for walks in the park and badminton games.

And every night when I am back from work, we would try to play board games as a family. Every sort of board games from Scrabble to Blokus to Game Of Life to Monopoly to UNO!

The girls always enjoy strategizing against me in Blokus, which always resulted in me being the last! 

We are board game junkies from eons back, and have a good collection of board games at home. We will usually bring these out during the holidays to play games the good old-fashioned way. Compared to the instant, one-to-one and anti-social gratifications of iPad and mobile phone apps which I never approve of, playing board games slows time down, allowing for turn-taking, enforcing understanding, patience and empathy. Most importantly, we laughed together, jeered together, poked fun at one another together. What a wonderful way to bond!

Their all-time favourite - Game Of Life! I guess the reality depicted in this game appeals to them. 

Sweet Repose

Friday evenings are usually the most relaxing and restful for us. It signifies the end of yet another typical crazy and hectic week, not just for us working adults and parents, but increasingly for the Bees as well, especially during term time. 

I usually take the opportunity to play board games with the Bees on Friday nights, so I have this penchant to name Friday evenings as "Friday Game Nights". Board games are excellent homelearning activities! We would indulge in anything from Monopoly Junior to Blokus to UNO to Guess Who? to Game Of Life, etc etc. I am a board game junkie, and had accumulated more than 20 to 30 board games at home, so we are usually spoilt for choice on these languid nights. 

This evening, we played charades and had the most hilarious time laughing at each other's silly antics. The Bees seemed to read each other's minds well, so I ended up being the last in the game, hmph! 

After charades, I decided to wind down and chill out by listening to some of our favourite songs, and turned on Youtube for some karaoke versions of Dancing Queen and Mamma Mia (the Bees love Mamma Mia the movie! I can just imagine their awe if they ever watch Mamma Mia the musical!). 

From 10pm (yes, they had become late sleepers during the holidays, which had reduced my me-time substantially!), we were belting out favourites from ABBA, especially Dancing Queen - which we sang several times! 

It was just lovely - me in the middle, my arms wrapped around the Bees, all of us singing to the lyrics at the top of our voices while swaying to the beat of the music. It is great reading exercise for Little Bee too, who loves the song Dancing Queen to bits :) 

We finally decided to call it a night by 11pm, after an hour of crooning. 

Love such warm, energetic yet lackadaisical evenings like this! 

Thrashed!

On a lazy Saturday afternoon, I took out our trusty boardgame companion, Blokus, and challenged the Bees to one game. I was feeling rather smart and smug, thinking I could beat the 2 little girls flat in no time. Hence, I was a little complacent and a wee bit distracted.

The game started fairly smooth, with our 3 parties neck to neck along the race to victory. As the game progressed deeper, I was struggling and trying my best to regain any semblance of victory and confidence. Before long, I was deep in the mire of imminent defeat. And eventually, I was the first one to bow my way out of the game. 

The final results: both the Bees had a tie! Amazing!

They first used teamwork to corner my moves, which led to my final setback and surrender. I also witnessed how Big Bee eventually helped Little Bee to think and rationalise harder without providing straightforward answers for her little sister, and this constant encouragement was truly comforting to my soul. 

This is a perfect game for teamwork (in their case to defeat Mummy!) and strategic thinking. In fact, these days, I had been using boardgames to encourage teamplay and to allay the constant and inevitable sibling squabbles. Such games work wonders to bring smiles and cooperation to the Bees. Beat the reclusive iPad, iPhone and computer games anytime!

Of Castles And Dragons

Hubby and I used to play the good old-fashioned boardgame Dungeons and Dragons while dating. And then we moved on to the fabulous computer game "Might And Magic" which immersed us into a world of fantastical creatures and mysterious magic. And somewhere along the line, after Big Bee was born, I kicked myself out of this addictive habit of nightly encounters with this world of enchantment.

And now, Hubby is starting to immerse the entire family into the world of dragons and chivalry, of ogres and elves again. With new boardgames.

And I must admit these boardgames are so different from the days of yore when we were playing Dungeons and Dragons where we needed to project our imagination onto the 2-dimensional game. These 3 new boardgames that Hubby bought captured Big Bee's fascination and Little Bee's amazement...and my awe! Hence, almost nightly (other than days when he is away for work), Big Bee would pester Hubby to take out these boardgames to play. I usually had to holler at them during bedtime to stop the games.

I enjoy letting the kids indulge in role-play strategy games. Besides being a whole load of fun, these games enhance creative and logical thinking (battle strategies are hardly fodder for the weak-minded!), strengthen visualisation and imagination, and reinforce reading skills (lots of reading on myriad cards, compared to iPhone or computer games!).

What Hubby bought:

1) Heroscape

This is an awe-inspiring game that is 3-dimensional, and is a cross between a boardgame and a miniature Dungeons and Dragons/Lord of the Rings toy set. The girls got to create a different landscape of forests, deserts, lakes and swampland every time they start a game, and then construct their very own castle in the structure that they imagined...and use miniature elves, dragons, knights and ogres as game tokens. These miniature game tokens are a sight to behold, many of them exquisite enough to be collector's items. How cool can this be!? This is my favourite game thus far, and it is a delight to see the Bees building a different landscape and castle everytime they played.

Big Bee and Papa built this castle, and Big Bee chose all the powerful creatures on her side of the fortress, haha!

Papa's weaker creatures all outside Big Bee's castle, waiting for a chance to storm the fortress! Check out the landscape that Big Bee and Little Bee built!

Guess who put Belle from Beauty and the Beast into the castle, right behind the many barriers of defence? Little Bee, of course!

2) Castle Panic

This is Big Bee's favourite game. She would patiently wait for Papa to come home after work, and then persuade him to play with her. This is a typical boardgame (although these days, boardgames always come with some semblance of 3D structure, which in this case is the simple cardboard castle structure, nothing like the formidable fortress of Heroscape). However, what is fun is that all players are in the same team to protect their fortress, hence it encourages teamwork and of course, enhances plenty of imagination.

3) Warhammer

This is another jaw-dropping game. It comes with rows and armies of knights, cavalry soldiers, trolls, etc. All unpainted. Just like the terracotta warriors in Xi'an whose colourful paint had waned completely. And then it also comes with bottles of paint - for us to paint these armies! Right down to the types of terrain they fight on! *Faint* Hubby spent many nights poring over the tiny soldiers with a little brush to paint shiny new armour for them. This delicate task is definitely not for the impatient me! But Big Bee is like Hubby, more suited for such meticulous work, and she painstakingly painted a few soldiers and pieces of grassy terrain. Hubby beamed and said this would be his year-long project. *More faints*

All in all, plenty of war strategies happening nightly at home. And who says little girls cannot go to the battlefield? ;)

Pentago

Other than her favourite word games of Scrabble, Hangman and Boggle, Big Bee also loves to play board games like Blokus, which is an amazingly fun game for the entire family, and most recently, Pentago.

Pentago is a brilliant mind-boggling game that nurtures the logical and creative problem-solving skills in children by encouraging them to open their minds to different possibilities and to strategise through forward planning.



I am still grasping with the intricacies of the game, as it involves a lot of twisting and bending of our mental concepts as well as comfort zones. Last night, Big Bee and I spent a quiet evening before bedtime playing this game. I am not sure if it is the late hour (it was 11pm, a treat for Big Bee as today is a school holiday), or if Mummy's poor old rigid mind is just too inflexible - but Big Bee beat me hands down 3 out of 4 games *utterly ashamed*. Big Bee was elated though, and went to bed with a sunny smile on her face.

"Added 50 point bonus"

For those who played Scrabble regularly, you will be familiar with one of the rules of play: "Added 50 point bonus". It states that any player who plays all seven of their tiles in a single turn scores a premium of 50 points in addition to their regular score for the turn. It is a lofty incentive that I had always aspired towards but never ever had the luck nor opportunity to reach.

A few Sundays ago, our family was ensconced in the Bees' room, contentedly playing Scrabble, using this game as a typical unwinding activity after a hectic weekend. As we started a new round of game, I saw Big Bee furrowing her eyebrows and arranging one rather long word at length. Suddenly she exclaimed, "I used up all my 7 letters!" Hubby sat up immediately, read through the rules of play intensely and declared, "Then you will get an added 50 point bonus!!! You will beat Mummy this round!"

Both of us looked at her with amazement and she was dazed for a while with delighted disbelief. Needless to say, she won hands down that evening. For the first time! And I must highlight that, since that evening, she had won the game against me one more time! Well done, Big Bee! I am now waiting for her to be victorious over me in Boggle!

Big Bee formed the word "CANDLES" from all her 7 tiles in one round. Those random letters on the top left quadrant of the board belonged to Little Bee who also took turns participating in the game eagerly!

Learning Through Games

Big Bee is now addicted to word games like Boggle and Scrabble, much to my elation. So, idyllic weekend afternoons and lazy weekday nights are now spent with the family cuddled on our bed, four heads huddled over a small set of Boggle or a slightly more extensive Scrabble. 

Big Bee is getting better at these games the more she plays, and I thought it is an excellent way of enhancing her vocabulary outside of her reading. Whenever we use new words that she had never seen before, we took the opportunity to explain these words to her. Despite the competitive nature of these games, I will always assure her that we are not gearing to win, but rather, treating this as a family games session. This reassurance never fails to soothe Big Bee's somewhat competitive streak, and enhances her interest in these games despite her difficulty to pit her skills against Papa and Mummy! (But I must say she is becoming a formidable competitor!)

Boggle is also a fantastic game for Little Bee to identify and write down alphabets and short words like "No", "Cat" or "Egg" that she is now beginning to learn to spell. Whenever we play Boggle, Little Bee will join in, and I will pretend to include her in the game. It is very amusing to see her frantically scribbling alphabets and little short words or imaginary words within the limited game time, and I will also attempt to go through her word list, giving her game points so she does not feel left out. 

Family games like these are wonderfully multi-functional - allowing us to bond over board games and strengthening the Bees' English prowess! Perfect! 

Fish-O-Poly

Big Bee loves to play boardgames. Every weekend afternoon, when Little Bee is sleeping, she would always take a boardgame of her choice and we would spend an infinite amount of fun playing it. And strangely, she would win 95% of the time (trust me, I never ever pretended to let her win!)

Her first boardgame, Monopoly Junior, was a present by PF for her 5th birthday. And she never looked back since. We have more than 10 different kinds of boardgames. Game Of Life, PayDay, Star Wars Monopoly, Scrabble Junior, Pictionary, Charades (yes, they have a boardgame for charades!), Horse-o-poly (which is a horsey form of monopoly!), Blokus, Guess Who?....and lots more!

Her favourite game for the past 2 years had been Game Of Life. I love it too, and we would spend endless hours giggling over our "lives" in the game! Hubby would usually play the more "mind-boggling" games with her like Blokus and another which he bought recently (and I could not remember the name!). I tried playing with them several times, and they both always beat me in these games! Those mind-challenging games certainly stimulate creative and logical thinking, hmm, maybe these are the skills lacking in me, hence I always end up being the loser!

Poor Little Bee always tries joining in, and we always let her "pretend-play" with us, by dishing out money and tokens to her, and she would be happily throwing the dice, but not comprehending what she was achieving! So cute! I can't wait for the day when all 4 of us can play together!

One day last month, Hubby sat down with Big Bee on a little project to create her very own boardgame. Both Hubby and me used to create boardgames ourselves when we were children, so we thought this is a fantastic way for her to develop this little hobby too!

After an afternoon of secrecy and hard work, they revealed their product to me. Very sellable, very colourful, and I love those quirky little game messages! We spent many hours playing it too.

The concept "Fish-o-poly" was thought of by Big Bee, as she wanted to create a boardgame with an ocean theme. And she modelled it exactly on Monopoly Junior. We bought ocean creatures finger puppets from Ikea to be game tokens and used paper money and houses from Monopoly Junior. Hubby helped a lot in crafting out game penalties or rewards on the board! I was very impressed indeed!

Game cards (Hubby and Big Bee labelled them as "Clam Cards")

Finger puppets as game tokens

Anyone interested to buy? ;)