{Random Game Playing}

 During some of our quiet moments the boys have been bringing out lots of games. They both love playing games and so do I. There are three that I will not play: Twister, Candyland (the game that never ends), and Operation, the buzzing drives me absolutely mad.

Anyway....we've been playing Battleship with J(6.5) for about a year now, but he's finally to the point that he can successfully sit and complete and entire game on his own. Though he still gets confused about the coordinates now and then.

This reminded me that we need to find some more pegs, they have a way of going missing. I Googled "replacement battleship pieces" and ended up here. This is a site you'll want to bookmark!

 Love this game.

A(3.5) has been playing a lot of Ready, Set, Silhouette! by I SPY. We like all things I SPY at our house.

 For this game you lay out all of the color picture cards and then each player takes on silhouette card at a time. When you find your match you yell "silhouette", check your match, and then choose another card.

 When all of the cards are gone, the player with the most matches wins.

 We didn't actually play by the rules but A(3.5) played by himself matching the silhouettes to the color cards. If he got stuck or frustrated I would make a suggestion or narrow down the area to help him out.

This is one that we found at a garage sale ages ago, and would recommend. It's Touche' and it's like extreme tic-tac-toe. The board has five interchangeable magnet pieces that fit in slots underneath so each time you play you take the pieces out and reset them. I don't remember the actual number but there's 1000's of ways to set it up.

You either start with round white markers or square red markers. The tricky part comes from the magnets. Once you move your marker onto the board, it may stay the same color, or the magnet in the marker may flip and you'll end up with a piece of the opposite color. The goal is to get four pieces of the same color in a row, regardless of shape. 

The strategy of the game is over J's(6.5) head but he still likes to play. A(3.5) just likes to move the pieces around and see what they do.

We've also been enjoying the Thomas' Great Race game that The Mister bought for A. It's appropriate for a wide range of ages and we like playing it together. It's excellent for A who gets to practice a little counting and number matching. We try and encourage J to read the cards rather than guessing what it says by the picture. The game only lasts about 5-10 minutes which is perfect for short attention spans. The pictures are cute, and who doesn't like Thomas?