Category Archives: Games

We’re talking TRASH

Leave a reply

I credit my friend, Jenn, for intuitively knowing I’d reached my quota on GO FISH and UNO.

Because she posted about TRASH.

At which time I grabbed two decks of cards and the nearest kid and ‘learned’ ourselves how to play.

After which we carried those two decks in a brown pony tail holder we found on the floor of the van to Lake Wenatchee, to our cousins’ house, to grandma’s…and taught everyone along the way.

It’s simple–really…but it merits more than that. Little peeps still figuring out their numbers–finally figure them out. Adults don’t cry bored tears or mentally rehearse their grocery list while staring at cards with kids. Strategy required–zero.

So if you’re up for learning a new family game, or a sanity-saving game when kids trot off to play on their own, here’s how to play TRASH.

Using two decks of cards, we deal ten cards to each player.

Each of us then lines up our cards–without peeking–face down into two rows. Five on the top. Five on the bottom.

What our objective is… is to be the first person to have all of our cards turned over.

But in order to do so, we have to put them in numeric order (1-10).

Aces represent ones. Cards 2-10 represent what they are. KINGS are wild. And QUEENS and JACKS  are naughty and end our turn.

When it’s our turn, we take a card from the pile and put it in the correct sequence of our cards.

My son went first.

Only he turned over a JACK, which ended his turn before he actually got started. He simply places it in the discard pile.

And, well…I turned over a QUEEN, which ended my turn as well.

Yikes. Another JACK for my son.

But a FOUR for me.

Which means I get to put the four in its correct spot. So starting from the top left row of my cards, I count four spaces over until I reach the fourth card.

That’s where my four goes.

And…

I get to turn over the card that was in its place.

It’s a KING.

Which usually sets off much rejoicing…because a KING can be placed anywhere.

I’ll stay calm, though.

I chose to put my KING next to my four, which is the spot for my five.

So right now my KING represents a five.

And I get to keep going.

Underneath the card in my five-spot, was a TWO.

So counting from the top left again, I count over two spaces and place my TWO in its correct spot.

Underneath my TWO card, however, was another TWO.

I’ve already got a TWO, so I discard this one and my turn is over.

My son drew a FOUR.

So counting from his top left, he put his FOUR in its spot.

The card that was in his four-spot…

Is a SEVEN.

And…

he’s puts it in the right spot.

Beneath the SEVEN, though, was another SEVEN, so he discards that one, and it’s my turn.

I drew a SEVEN.

So counting my cards from the top row….one-two-three-four-five

And then beginning from the bottom left…six-seven….

I find where my SEVEN goes.

Beneath my SEVEN, was a FIVE.

Aha.

I already have a KING sitting in my five-spot.

Which means I get to replace the KING (since it’s wild) with my FIVE, and use the KING to turn over any other card I want.

Slick, eh?

Yay for KINGS!

I put the KING in my ten-spot.

Only the card beneath it ended up being a SEVEN.

I’ve already got one of those.

So my turn is over.

My son drew a SIX.

And then counted his cards until he found where the SIX went.

Underneath it was an ACE, so he put that in the one-spot.

Underneath the ACE, though, was a SEVEN. A card he already had, so he discarded.

Oop. Got a QUEEN.

My son turned over a FIVE…and put it in its spot.

Underneath it was a SIX. He’s already got one of those…

So into the discard pile it goes.

I drew a KING.

And placed it in my nine-spot.

Underneath it, though…a QUEEN.

My turn is over.

My son drew a THREE…then had the same luck.

A QUEEN underneath.

I drew a THREE.

And still needed one of those.

But underneath it, a TWO, which I already had.

My son drew a NINE and uh…put it in the ten-spot…I see.

I must have checked out for a moment.

Anyway….underneath that card was a SIX, which he already had.

Okay…almost done here.

My next draw was a SIX. A card I needed.

And underneath my SIX…

A TEN, which is great news, if I care about winning, because…what I do now, is replace my KING in my ten-spot with my TEN, and use the KING to turn over the card in my one-spot–the only card I have left to turn over.

It doesn’t matter what that card in my one-spot was or is.  It only matters that all of my cards are turned over.

In this case, I have KINGS representing my ONE and NINE.

But it works…and for what it’s worth…I win.

Good game, Son!

 

John Kathy Koester, DrTroy Munson liked this post

Spot It!

Leave a reply

I’d always suspected the floor of our van had carpet.  And I was right.  Buried beneath Sunday school papers folded into fans, lost library books, colored pencils, snack wrappers, four pairs of flip flops, one skirt, three sweatshirts, eighty-four cents in change, and six inches of crumbs, there it was.  The floor.

But way in the back.  Back where the groceries get carried home, back where the car chains and the jumper cables chill, I found the game I’d bought six weeks ago.  Still in the bag, in the box, in the plastic.

And what a find.

It’s called Spot It!

Have you played?

We hadn’t.  And now we can’t stop.

It looks like this.  A little tin.  Not big enough for three Christmas cookies.  But big enough for 55 cards plus a few with instructions.

Here’s the gist.  Every card has eight pictures on it.  And EVERY card has a picture on it that matches EVERY card.

Yikes.  Even I’m confused, so let me show you instead.

Here’s how the game is set up.  Each person playing is dealt a card.  The rest of the cards are stacked face up in the middle.  The objective is to be the first person to find the match between your card and the center card.

Can you see each match?

Now what happens is that what appears to be a simple preschool game–finding the match–becomes like searching for a penny you dropped in your un-mown backyard, at night, with a flashlight.

I’m holding the card from the middle over by the card from the left.  Do you see the match now?

Barely?  Maybe?

It’s the yellow word “Stop.”

Now I’m holding the center card over near the card on the right.  See it?  It’s faint.

It’s the light blue pencil.

The person who can identify the matching item between his card and the one in the center first, gets the center card and places it on top of his pile.

We gave my son credit for the last match and put the center card on top of his pile.  He liked that.

Do you see the next match(es)?  Might have to squint.  My daughter is pointing to hers–the purple spider web.

My son’s is the blue dolphin–nearly microscopic on the center card.  I don’t think he sees it yet.

So why is this fun?

It just is.

Part of it is like the real life experience of staring at the very thing you’re looking for and never seeing it.  That’s fun, right?!

Here they are–two kids staring holes into the carpet until one sees his match.

And when that gets old, why we can deal out the cards to each other and place one up in the center.  Just the opposite of what we were doing.  Our new objective is trying to get rid of our pile of cards first by doing what we were doing before–finding the match on our top card with the card in the center.

Here my daughter called out “car” and then placed her card on top in the center.

Simple.

And sometimes easy.

But the coolest thing:  it’s a game for everyone.  Kids.  Parents.  Dads home for lunch.

Spot It!

Jason Colberg liked this post

Making a Memory

2 Replies

If you’ve bought or been given a game of Memory in the last ten years, then you know there’s something lacking.

It’s called ‘fun.’

Last year we pulled out Dora Memory and tried to match Dora wearing her backpack and smiling behind her with another Dora wearing her backpack and smiling behind her.  Which wasn’t to be confused with Dora in cowboy boots, Dora on a unicorn, Dora holding an apple, Dora in an Indian outfit or Dora doing something else.

We asked ourselves what the point was of a preschool Memory game if every piece was nearly the same.

Uh…right.

Which was how ours ended up at the Goodwill stacked beside someone else’s.

This morning seemed like a Memory day, though.  And whether it was or not, the four of us sat around the table, deep in colored pencils and white index cards, drawing in silence whatever fell out of our brain.

Which might not have been all that much.

But here’s the pinnacle of homemade Memory–all the finished pairs lie face down while two kids hem and haw about which card has the other centipede.

Then our son turns two over.

And…

they’re not a match.

Nor are these.

Or these.

But, hey…two lollipops…now we’re talkin’!

And two similar scribbles…sweet!

I’d say what hardly mattered was our five minute game.

But rather the Memory of making it.

Hello, H-A-N-G-M-A-N

Leave a reply

Three weeks ago we started winding down the evening with a family game.  Like UNO.  Or Candyland.  Or Kid Charades.

Only by the third night our kids had sprung into their pajamas in fourteen seconds and were waiting with Blokus dumped out on the living room floor.  Game time was suddenly a habit.

Last night was no different.  Except for Hangman.

Which may not sound like such a rip-roaring time because…

it’s not.

But if you’re four and your dad’s on your team, or you’re seven and you’re playing with your mom, well then, the perspective’s different, and suddenly Hangman’s a blast.

Let’s see…I think we’ll guess an ‘O’.

What I didn’t expect is how much ownership our son would take in the game.  There have been game night’s where he has pranced around the living room, jumped off the couch, left for a drink of water, tackled his sister or flopped around like a fish on land.

Other than tackling his sister, he did none of that.

He took turns guessing letters; he consulted with his dad…

and after my daughter and I guessed the final ‘V’  to spell LOVABLE, he positioned the next round of letters.

He was serious about his Hangman.

But really, there wasn’t much about the game our kids didn’t love.

The  buddy-ship.

The independence.

The intensity of guessing a ‘B.’

Hangman.

I’ll be darn.

John Kathy Koester, Kari Morris liked this post

Hug Tag

1 Reply

They called it ”HUG” tag.

Which I’d never heard of.

Or witnessed.

Or played.

Or realized was so much harder than regular tag.

Until my daughter tore through the house after her brother who was high-tailing it to the backyard but got swooped up instead and squeezed by a pair of arms.  Hers.

“You’re it!” she hollered.

At which time he peeled out in the kitchen, righted himself and jumped off the back steps after his sister who sprinted around the backyard.

He crumpled fifteen seconds later in the lawn with empty arms and pouted in my direction, “she won’t let me hug her.”

My daughter turned her back for a moment, concerned elsewhere.

At which time my son–and his attitude–leapt two feet and nabbed her waist.

And, well, all was right with ‘hug’ tag.

Heather Sink Bailey liked this post

Tagged

2 Replies

I was hovering somewhere between the dishwasher and the fridge when my son slapped my behind giddily and shouted,  “You’re it!”

With a reflexed left hand, I swiped his shoulder and countered, ” nope, bud.   You’re it.”  

My son crept in closer, circling the kitchen with his pointer finger, ready to poke and run.  I washed my hands at the sink.

Then with an I’m-so-gonna-get-my-mom kind of giggle, my son made a few failed swipes before grazing the back of my leg with his finger.

He turned to flee.  Only…

the poor guy grossly underestimated his mother who flung back a blind hand and laid him flat in front of the pantry.

His little finger rose from the heap as he explained too late, “mommy, I just wanted to be the tagger.”

John Kathy Koester liked this post

The Business of Bowling

1 Reply

It was just the three of us–minus the cashier–and the guy eating onion rings at a back table.

In the whole place.

Right there on lane 19.

Gearing up to get two of the all-time lowest scores in bowling.  And claim we had fun doing it.

If you’re worried about bowling finesse…well, you should be.

They certainly didn’t check us at the door for any skills.

Or ball speed.

Or accuracy…

Steady.  Steady… A little to the left…

That’s right, baby.  Didn’t even hit a pin.

So mostly we were hopeful…

..

for a pin or two.

Maybe a pin?

Ah…forget the pins. 

What matters is being the first one back to the ball chute to snag your ball.

‘Cuz bowling is all about winning…ahem…at something.

Operation Chainsaw

Leave a reply

I understand something now.

I understand why there are four games of Operation on the shelves of the Goodwill.  On any given day.

A whole bunch of somebodies couldn’t take it anymore.  The buzzing, that is.  And it was either get rid of the game or hit themselves with a hammer.

Which is what I wanted to do yesterday.

My son had the pick of the playroom, and he plopped down Operation. 

Operation.  As in the game which requires finer than fine motor skills to “surgically” remove tiny, white body parts from Cavity Sam with a pair of tweezers.  Only the tweezers set off a buzzing noise just short of a fire alarm that’ll restart your heart, if they touch the little metal sides holding the body parts.  And if the person holding the tweezers keeps touching the metal because they’re going to dig out the funny bone no matter what, ain’t no fire alarm, friend, but a chainsaw.

RARRRRRRRRR.  RA-RAR-RARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

I was in such company.

That my son is learning to hold a pencil makes him no surgeon.  Which is fine.  It’s just that as he fisted the tweezers and warbled them around to extract the ‘broken heart’, there wasn’t a piece of metal he didn’t connect with.  RAR-RAR-RUH-RARRRRRRRRRR….RARRRRRRRRRRR. “I CAN’T GET IT, MOMMY!”  RUH-RARRRRR. RARRRRRR. RARRRRRRRRRRRRRRR. RARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR.  “Hey, I got it!”

By which time my son ‘sawed’ out the rest of Sam’s organs and I crumpled to the carpet in surrender. 

Time to donate Operation Chainsaw.

Gym Date

Leave a reply

Sometimes, more often than it happens, we  just need to get away.

Anywhere.

Like to a gym with nets.

Without the little people.

So we can smack a volleyball around…

and reminisce about having body parts that ran faster, hit harder,  jumped higher or heavens, jumped at all.

 

And we can high-five people our own age.  And gimp to the restroom alone.  We can eat a whole banana without sharing and expect to find the dried cherries still in the trailmix. 

We can play. 

Thank you, Jesus…we can play.

Then when the day be done, we can smile…

because, by golly, we’re still standing.

And ‘standing’, at this moment, counts for something.

Memory Lane

Leave a reply

It wasn’t so much that I played a rousing game of Memory tonight.  Or that my son, with whom I played, kept checking on the same two pieces only to find they were still not matches.

No…no…it wasn’t that.

It was that the game–the box, the lid, the square pictures, the whole thing–was mine.   From, uh, three decades ago.

Which says something, I suppose.  About my mom.  Who…

who had no business saving a game ain’t nobody played since the second grade.  Only she did.  Which makes me smile.  Because… there’s just something I can’t articulate about turning over the same cards with my son that I once cherished in my four-year old heart.

I could not have forseen this moment.  Nor planned it even yesterday.

My game. My kid. My Our joy.

Thanks, Mom.