Ideas In The Form Of Games

Despite the fact that I have been reading books ever since I was in Elementry School. I honestly disliked reading until I became a parent at the age of twenty-two. During that time my life totally changed in every aspect. It was not just the act of reading books to my children that I started to enjoy. I stumbled upon a genre of self-improvement books which I began to read one after the other never seeming to get enough. I also discovered the world of religion and could not stop reading. Theology fascinated me so much that I studied it in depth.

After reading so many books and taking care of small children every day something unexpected happened to me. I started to get ideas whenever I read a new book full of knowledge that I could share with others. The ideas came in the form of games.

For as long as I could remember I have always loved to play games like dominoes, Uno, crazy 8, go fish, speed, matching, truth or dare, slapjack, spades, Candyland, Twister, Guess who, mother may I, double dutch, hopscotch you name it I have played it.

I wanted my children to like playing games as much as I did.

I decided to teach them the lessons that I was learning from the books that I had read, by making the games with them. I bought scissors, foam sheets, copy paper, colored stock card paper, index cards, and markers. It never took more than a couple of hours to create a game. After which, all my children would be excited to play the new game with me. Sometimes I would test out the games on the children I watched during the day while their parents were at work. It helped me understand what age appropriation was. At the age of forty-nine, I can still create a game from any book that I read. As long as I have a pair of good cutting scissors and some paper. Out of all the games that I created bingo seems to be the easiest for children to learn from, and the simplest one to make.

All you need to do is decide what you want the child to learn. Let me give an example, we can use the numbers in Spanish and Arabic at the same time. First, take four pieces of card stock paper and write the Arabic numbers up to twenty all over the paper. On the second piece of card stock paper write the Spanish numbers up to twenty all over that piece of paper. On the third piece of card stock paper write Spanish and Arabic numbers one through ten. On the fourth piece of card stock paper write Spanish and Arabic numbers eleven through twenty. This works for four players you can make more boards if you have more players. Just make sure to mix up the numbers so not all the boards are exactly the same. Once you have finished your boards set them aside.

Then take a foam sheet and cut it with scissors, into small pieces that can cover the numbers on your card stock paper.

The next step is to take a piece of paper and fold it into small squares. Use your scissors to cut those squares and stack them up like a deck of cards make sure you have twenty of them. Once the squares are cut out, use a marker to write numbers on them in English. The answers need to be written on the bottom of your card in Spanish and Arabic, small enough to cover with your thumb. Now your game is ready to be played. Choose the person who will be calling out the numbers they draw from the card pile. Pass out one card stock board, and twenty pieces of cut up foam to every player. As the person says a number in English the players will cover that number with a piece of foam if they have it on their board in Arabic or Spanish. If they have both Arabic and Spanish they can put a foam piece on both numbers. The first player to cover a whole row wins.

Nothing makes me happier than teaching children through homemade games. Especially when they are helping me make them.