Games

[laohaire]

Looking for your recommendations for games that might help with the following:

- Letter recognition (DD recongizes almost all letters, but it wouldn't hurt to reinforce)
- Numbers over 12
- Phonics, maybe
- Very simple reading, what people would call "sight words"

The games wouldn't have to be, like "marketed for learning." For example, we noticed that the old favorite board game Sorry sealed DD's knowledge of numbers when she was younger - though unfortunately the game doesn't include 6 and 9 (which are confusing anyway) so she's still a little shaky on those.

The other night I had the idea to make up BINGO cards, which would deal with numbers 1-25.

Any other ideas?

[WhaleinGaloshes]

She's 4 (from your sig.)? My 4yo can play Go Fish all.day.long.

I make Go Fish cards for all kinds of things.

Print it on card stock/make two copies/cut them apart and go. "Do you have a 'The'? No, Go Fish."

Also Old Maid. And Bingo, too...we had a state Bingo game that inspired me to play other matching games Bingo-style.

Memory matching games are awesome, too.

One word on the 'numbers over 12'...I love the RightStart program and that and others would encourage you to teach place value and not memorizing numbers over 10. There's a different sequence to it...just something to think about where you're going with number theory and counting.

[laohaire]

Oh, we are SO playing the Go Fish game you described. <Runs to get my card stock out>

Will have to look into the place value thing. We had sort of been trying to teach her about that but not very well. The reason she's solid up to 12 is because of the Sorry game, which uses all numbers 1-12 except 6 and 9. But you're right, memorizing 12 is different from understanding that it's 10+2, and thus 15 is 10+5.

[WhaleinGaloshes]

I've made Go Fish cards for famous works of art, geographical landmarks, you name it. They're fun.

FWIW, we play bingo with exactly the same materials. I take one set of cards, divide them up in 2 (or # of players if we rope Gramma in) and then we lay those out in front of us face up. The other matching set of cards goes into a dark bag and we take turns pulling a card, calling out what's on it and seeing who has it.

For card games, DD sometimes uses a makeshift 'blind' out of a notebook or something because it's hard to hold more than 5 or 6, so she can lay them out in front of her. Or I just look the other way and pretend I don't see them while she spills them all over

I treated myself to a small paper-chopper and it's my favoritest HS thing, I think

[laohaire]

Played Beginning Reading Words Go Fish last night and it was great! DD is just on the cusp of reading, and while I can't swear that the words she learned last night she'd definitely recognize in another context (in a book, for example) yet, it's soooo close. I purposefully chose some words with similar beginnings or first letters so she wasn't just looking at those. And I was happy to see she recognized a few right off the bat (unicorn, look) without me ever telling her. Though they could have been lucky guesses. I haven't taught her a lot of U words

Thanks for the ideas! I was sorta thinking I'd get suggestions for bought games but I like the make-your-own much better for a number of reasons.

[AAK]

Originally Posted by laohaire

Oh, we are SO playing the Go Fish game you described. <Runs to get my card stock out>

Will have to look into the place value thing. We had sort of been trying to teach her about that but not very well. The reason she's solid up to 12 is because of the Sorry game, which uses all numbers 1-12 except 6 and 9. But you're right, memorizing 12 is different from understanding that it's 10+2, and thus 15 is 10+5.

Yes, but while playing "sorry" she would activly count out the 12 steps. That would reinforce the value of the number rather than just the sequence of counting. Because twelve steps are measurably longer than 2 steps or 5 steps, etc. But, you could also point out the ten + two when you are counting out the steps.

If you are worried about understanding place value, you can play with an abacus, or (we use legos and beads) and make towers of tens out of the legos. Then all the little guys are ones. They can't become a tower until they have a group of ten. The books "Sir Cumference. . ." has one that is very clever about place value.

But, for games, we have the Alphabet train and the number train puzzles from Melissa and Doug. We spread out all the pieces and will hunt for the next number or letter. When we find the right number, we count the stuff on the train to "check". When we find the right letter we say the words of the picture on that train car and listen for the sound.

Also, with the go fish games (which we love here!) -- they don't always have to be matches. Big A and be a match with little a. The number 5 can match up with the picture of 5 dots.

As a kid I used to play memory on the computer and we could choose things like opposites, spanish/english words, etc. So, this isn't limited at all.

Amy