Taking a few days off over the holiday season meant some quality time plonked in front of the woodburner with some old board games. I introduced Joe to a childhood favourite, 'Coppit'. My 'vintage' version is, as you can see, a bit the worse for wear, but it is still a great game, even cut-throat - if a board game can said to be such a thing.
Once he got the hang of it (after one game), he won every game after. But I got repeated revenge with Scrabble and didn't gloat too much.
Another old favourite of mine is 'Tell Me' - I've had this game in various versions almost all my life. The two I have now are from the 50's and 60's. The same game, but with slight differences and not just in the box design.
It's a very basic concept; general knowledge questions are read out, the disc is spun and lands on a letter of the alphabet and the first person to call out a correct answer (or one which isn't disputed) wins the card. Winner is the person with the most cards. Although simple, the spinning disc brings in the element of randomness, so the answers are different every time.
The 1960s version is almost like the one I knew in the 70's, with fairly straightforward questions -
'something in this room' 'name of a member of parliament' 'an advertising slogan' (this one is not included in the 50's version; maybe a sign of the times?)
also 'a word used in radio' (very broad and up for debate) 'a means of communication' and a reflection of the growing prevalence of the one-eyed monster in the room, 'a television personality'.
The 50's version has many of the same questions, but also some odd, almost philosophical ones. We played both games, and this one threw up by far the most interesting discussions and verbal tussles. Here are some choice ones -
'What would you like to become?' - which could be anything from 'a better person', to 'a proper grown up' to 'a postman'.
'What or who annoys you most?' - again, a debatable subject, and dependent on the alphabet letter thrown up. And should the answer be silly or truthful? Should you say any answer so long as it fits the letter, or not answer because you honestly can't think of anything which annoys you beginning with 'X'?
'What or who do you love very much?' - same situation really, and we tended towards the silly and soppy.
'What frightens you?' Do we really want to go here? If the letter was the right one for one's honest answer, it could throw up all kinds of deep confessions, but we decided to stick with anything monster-ish or spooky.
'How do you feel at this moment?' Again, this one can lead onto quite interesting discussions and it's then that you realise how something as simple as a board game can be great conversation makers as well as entertainment.
'Something seen on a country ramble' didn't appear in the 1960's version - maybe it was deemed too old fashioned for the time. A bit 'Enid Blyton'.
'A word reading the same forwards or backwards' is very straightforward, but surprisingly tricky to think of at the time and led to a few drawn out silences as we racked our 21st century brains, more used to Google for the answer to anything.
An original owner of the 50's game had obviously decided to put in their own questions - I have a feeling this may have been 'Dad' as the block lettering is very much like my father's and other men's writing of that time. So we have something a little more modern
'A term used in inter-planetary space travel' - this was an ambiguous beast and some confusion reigned as to what kind of thing precisely fitted the question. I swung it with 'asteroid' but it didn't really feel right.
'Name of your favourite TV programme' - again, a more updated question, so maybe this family had a TV of their own. If so, they may have been quite financially comfortable as not many households at that time had them.
The last two seem to have their own little back story. There is -
'A county cricketer, past or present'
and then
'Not a cricketer but a famous sports person'
I wonder if there was a cricket expert in the family, and the last altered question was put in to give the others a chance? We will never know, but I'm sure we had as much fun playing these old-fashioned games as previous generations have.
Berrington, the 'Teddy Bear of Doom' went up for sale in my Etsy shop and someone loved him enough to buy him. I know he's gone to a fabulous home, though I had to help him with the packing. So it's been a good start to the new year for both of us and I send everyone best wishes for 2016.
In the realm of “How crazy is this?” I have a whopper of a weirdo story. As you may or may not know, for many years I worked with the delightful Winnie-the-Pooh toys in the Children’s Center at 42nd Street. Because the toys originally hailed from Britain I become well and truly familiar with folks insisting that they be sent “home”. In fact, if you’d like to read the entire history of the British M.P. who made it her misbegotten mission, you can do so here. I hadn’t thought of the debacle in a while, until a most peculiar and bizarre piece ran in Newsweek. It is difficult to ignore a clickbait headline like Behind Bullet-Proof Glass Winnie-the-Pooh Is In Jail. Come again? Riddled with inaccuracies one Cole Moreton decided it would be a good idea to give the impression that the Winnie-the-Pooh toys are now housed in the “basement” of the Schwarzman building. By “basement” one assumes he means “ground floor” but from the piece you’d be convinced that they were stuffed in a dusty closet lit by a single lightbulb on a string. It is a shockingly poor piece of journalism (not a single NYPL employee is interviewed). If Mr. Morten had spoken to even a single person he might have scooped Time when they reported that Winnie might be making a visit to Britain in the future. Ah well.
- In other news, my library’s President was recently interviewed by Humans of New York sounding the good sound byte. Go, Tony, go!
- From time to time I do some freelance for the company Zoobean. They specialize in reader’s advisory and now, for the first time, they’ve paired with the Sacramento Public Library to use Beanstack, an advisory app for young children. Well played, y’all!
- Christmas may be over but that doesn’t stop me for wanting things. Like this poster from Sara O’Leary’s upcoming picture book This Is Sadie, illustrated by Julie Morstad:
- My reviewing took a bit of a header since the birth of kiddo #2 but I still engage. Just the same, I cannot say that I haven’t engaged in all the Top 20 Most Annoying Book Reviewer Cliches at one time or another. With the possible exception of “unflinching”. That one doesn’t come up when dealing with board books very often. (example: “Martin offers an unflinching look at a brown bear’s ursine strength, never hesitating from delving into what it is they truly do see”).
Hope you got all the gifts you desired. Me? I never got this amazingly hipsterish version of Clue, but boy is it special.
I mean, what kind of Clue makes Miss Scarlett the least attractive?
In a total game changer for the worlds of toys and technology (Hasbro and Zynga have teamed up to make toys and board games based on Zynga’s popular online video games. Starting with Words With Friends, the partnership will also see FarmVille,... Read the rest of this post
As a book blogger, it's always fun to mix things up a little bit and review something a little different. I was recently able to review three games from Klutz, a company I'm always buying birthday and Christmas gifts from and I had such a great time doing it! The husband might have enjoyed himself a bit too...
So, the first thing we played with was Thumb Wars: The Ultimate Guide. More of a kit than simply a game or a book, you get both with this set. A hysterically named "Sleeve of Doom" accompanies a small paperback book which includes strategies, different games to play, and my favorite: trash talk. So much fun!
The sleeve makes it pretty impossible to cheat, so even if you're just going to play the regular old thumb war, wear the sleeve! There's also instructions for playing with foil "hooks" and marshmallows. You can even MUD WRESTLE by using a cup of pudding in between your hands!! Seriously, this is such a simple setup, but it's absolutely hilarious to partake in. We very much enjoyed ourselves.
Next, we opened up The 15 Greatest Board Games in the World. Now, I am going to have to disagree with the title...I don't really think they're the greatest board games in the entire world, but we certainly had fun playing most of the games.
The pieces for every game come in a handy case, which makes it easy to store right inside the book. Each page spread includes one side for game instructions and one side for the actual game board. Boards are nicely illustrated, with each looking a bit different, which was nice.
We didn't play all 15 games (only so much free time I suppose), but the seven we did play were a lot of fun. Our favorite? China Moon.
I do definitely agree with the age minimum being 7, as some of the concepts might be a bit over the head of a younger child, but a 7/8 year old should be able to grasp the games just fine. There are a few games that actually list the age minimum as 9, so watch out for those.
This one would make an excellent family gift, as everyone can have a shot playing. And I loved that it was all contained in just the one book. No big box to store!
Finally, I was sent A Super-Sneaky Double-Crossing Up, Down Round and Round Maze Book by Larry Evans, which is as cool as it's title makes it sound! I didn't actually DO the mazes...I would rather let a niece or nephew play within the pages, but these mazes look like a ton of fun. Definitely different than
I’m all about video games in libraries. I have a Wii and a Playstation 2 at my library, and have been having gaming programs a few times a month since I started last summer. It is certainly fun and brings in the teens, but recently I decided to try something new: board games and card games. I called it Low Tech Gaming. The program had a good turnout and was so much fun, that I’ve decided to add it to the Friday afternoon rotation.
The games I used: Apples to Apples, Jenga, Chicopoly and chess. Several board game titles are available from Demco, which is where I purchased some of these. The others my library had. Click through for details of our gaming session.
I borrowed a chess set from our Children’s room. I was impressed by how many of the teens in attendance knew how to play and gravitated toward it on their own. It had more boy appeal than girl appeal in this group, but I also had more boys than girls at the program.
Chicopoly is a Monopoly game based on our town, Chicopee. Instead of real estate squares like Boardwalk and Park Place, it is populated with local businesses. The object is to get customers rather than houses and hotels. I’ve seen games like this for other towns. Maybe one exists for yours. It surprised me that this was so appealing to my teens, but, aside from a bit of complaining about the money, they knew how to play. Monopoly is a long game, so they didn’t end up finishing in our hour and a half program session, but they still enjoyed the game.
It was a little tough to get a game of Apples to Apples started because I was having trouble explaining it. Each player gets seven red card with nouns on them. For each turn there is a green card with an adjective on it. Players must use one of the cards in their hand to be described by that adjective. Each player takes a turn being the judge, who decides which noun fits the adjective best, usually based on humor. You end up with statements like: Godzilla is delicate. One boy summed it up nicely saying it was comparing stupid things to other stupid things, which worked for the group and got the game going.
The hit of the day was Jenga. You make a tower of groups of three blocks in alternating directions, the object is to pull blocks out of the tower without knocking it down. Two boys were calling it epic Jenga and creating the highest, most precarious towers they could. Their deep concentration over the pulling of each block was impressive and amusing. It drew an audience of some of the other teens in the room.
This was just a small sample of games. There are so many others that would work for this kind of program. There was a request for card games, so next time I’ll bring regular playing cards, Uno, and Phase Ten. I would also like to try out some of the more involved board games that I have played, like Settlers of Catan or Power Grid (or maybe even Arkham Horror, one of my favorites, but it’s quite time consuming). I often hear about new games from my friends, or from browsing the gaming sections in comic book stores. Another good resource is this blog: Library Gamer.
Something I particularly enjoyed about this program, which was different from our high tech gaming days, was all of the eye contact being made, between teens and with me. It was a new kind of connection. I felt like I got to know the participants better than I do when we’re playing video games.
Scribbles, Doodles and Squiggles:
A Really Giant Coloring and Doodling Book
by Taro Gomi
Chronicle Books, 2006 and 2007
$19.99 each, ages 3-99.
Gomi has single-handedly re-energized the coloring book format with three engaging books that will inspire readers' imaginations for trips to come.
Inside each book, children not only color pictures (which are fun and quirky), but draw their own details from whimsical prompts.
On one page, doodlers are asked to put shoes on a giraffe; on another, draw what they think is springing out of a Jack-in-the-Box.
Be sure to bring along colored pencils and a book for each child. (Even good sharers may have trouble sharing this one.)
The Most Amazing Thumb Doodles Book in the History of the Civilized World
by the editors of Klutz, 2008
$14.95, ages 8 and up
That's a lot of hype for thumb prints, but this is one cute doodle book.
Artists get 16 scenes to make their own, from a rock face for finger climbers to scale to a boxing ring for thumb wrestlers to duke it out.
On the left side of every spread are step-by-step instructions for making characters they'd likely see in the scene. For instance, in a castle scene, there's a how-to for a fire-breathing finger dragon, a noble prince and his teary-eyed princess.
There are also handy tips to prevent smudges and to clean up inky finger tips, and to the side of the book are square
Win $100 of Games!
“Out of the Box is giving $100 worth of games to whoever posts the best story about using games in education! The deadline is 8/31/2008. What are you waiting for? Go Post!” ]
This offer includes libraries, and I know we have some great stories about using games in educational ways!
Out of the Box publishes a whole slew of boardgames (including Snorta, which I really want to try), but they also distribute one of my all-time favorites, Apples to Apples. Did you know that you can make your own A2A cards using a special pack of blank cards you can buy for $5.99? For the trial run of National Gaming Day @ your library on April 18, we did some staff gaming at ALA, something we’ll probably do again leading up to the official NGD on November 15. I’m thinking of customizing A2A with a few…carefully-chosen cards about ALA. If you play this game at your library, this could be a fun way to tailor the game to your community.
If you’ve never played this great game (good for kids, adults, families, and any combination thereof), you can watch a demo of how it’s played. Much laughter is guaranteed.
apples to apples,
board games,
gaming in libraries,
out of the box publishing
By: Jenny Levine,
on 2/19/2008
Blog:
The Shifted Librarian
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I’ve been telling everyone who will listen about Paul Waelchli’s work mapping the ACRL Information Literacy Standards to skills used to play popular videogames. I’ve been waiting for someone to do the same thing for school libraries, and now we have our first step towards that goal because Brian Mayer has mapped New York State’s education standards to some modern board games.
Gaming, School Libraries and the Curriculum
“Games engage students with authentic leisure experiences while reinforcing a variety of social, literary and curricular skills. When an educational concept is introduced and reinforced during a game, it is internalized as part of an enjoyable experience and further utilized as one aspect of a strategy to attain success.
Games also carry other benefits. They help students connect and build social skills, working as part of a team or negotiating the most advantageous situation for themselves. It also provides an opportunity for students to to explore a host of life skills not inherent in the curriculum , but important for success. Some of these include: micro-managing resources and options; actively re-evaluating, re-prioritizing and re-adjusting goals based on uncertain and shifting situations; determining acceptable losses in an effort to obtain an end goal; and employing analytical and critical skills to more authentic social experiences.
Here is a list of NYS standards currently supported by a well established school game library:
NYS Social Studies Standards:
- Standard 3: Geography Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of the geography of the interdependent world in which we live—local, national, and global—including the distribution of people, places, and environments over the Earth’s surface.
- Standard 4: Economics Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of how the United States and other societies develop economic systems and associated institutions to allocate scarce resources, how major decision-making units function in the U.S. and other national economies, and how an economy solves the scarcity problem through market and non-market mechanisms.
Several more are listed in the post, so please click through to see just how good a fit this can be.
If you still question whether there are literacies (especially information-related ones) involved in playing videogames, ask yourself if those same things happen around playing board games. If your answer is that yes, they do, what then is the difference between learning those skills through board games and learning them through videogames? Brian’s work helps illustrate the similarities but even more importantly, it shows how easily a school library could start out with the familiar world of board games as a way to implement gaming services and engage students more interactively in learning information literacy skills. Thanks, Brian!
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BookChase
“Bookchase® is exactly what it says - a chase with books.
Bookchase® is also the world’s first board game about books which comes with your own bookshelf, library card, bookshop, and your own set of tiny books to collect. First one to collect six books and head home wins! Simple really.
Bookchase® is a family game which can also be played by adults and is designed for anyone from 5 years upwards. Never read a book? - you could still win. Read all the books in the world? You could still lose. Dare you take the Bookchase® challenge?…
You can get your books in lots of ways - by answering questions, visiting the Bookchase® shop or Library. Or perhaps it’s your birthday and one of the other players would like to give you one of their books as a present. You can even find books on the Bookchase® board. Be careful though, you might drop your book in the bath and be forced to leave it on Treasure Island to dry out! However many players start you can never be certain who is going to win.” [via kimbooktu]
board games,
gaming in libraries
I had meant to write about our new game (and a bunch of other things) shortly after returning from our trip the other month to visit my parents, and now that it's homeschool convention/ curriculum fair season, I thought I'd better get moving.
On our trip we were lucky to get the chance to catch up with a dear family friend, my English fairy godmother. One of the many gifts with which she
I saw the SFG challenge for this week and had to dig these up from my old computer. They are from way back when I inked a drawing, scanned it in, colored it in photoshop- and thought it was the coolest. The game pieces were the these blobs of "germs" and the objective was to get to the smelly armpit. But watch out for Deo the Deodorant! Believe it or not, this was part of my senior thesis when I was in school.
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Funny stuff. I like it.
In my high school art class we had to make a board game. Mine was an "avoid the noid" Domino's pizza game. In a pizza box, of course.
Just found your site tonight. Good stuff.