GAME BOY

I have a GAME BOY!  No, not a Nintendo...a "real" Game Boy, namely Grandson R. 

He loves to play all kinds of games. 

His two favorite ones at the moment are:

and

Almost every time he comes to our house, he wants to play one or the other....or both.  Right now he's learning to shuffle the cards and he thinks that is really cool.

SEQUENCE is a really fun game but it is also a great teaching tool.  If you want to win you really need to use some careful, strategical thinking.  As a teacher I know how important it is these days for kids to use higher order thinking skills and this game, I believe, really fosters that type of thought.

JUMPING  MONKEYS  is just plain fun.  Each player has a little catapult from which you "launch" your monkeys.  Hopefully they land in the tree.  When all your monkeys have landed successfully, you're the winner.  We both get tickled almost every time we play this game and so it's full of laughs.

R. loves to win as he is quite competitive (like his daddy).  I don't just "let" him win as I want him to learn to be a good loser as well as a gracious winner.  Not to worry though as he beats me fair and square more than I beat him!

Some more favorites are:

The  SORRY  game is an old favorite...in fact, this one belonged to his great aunt.  Another game that's getting some of his attention is this one:

It's called  FIND IT.  This plastic tube is filled with colored beads and many tiny objects such as a feather, blocks with letters, a marble, etc.  You shake it up and see how many of the objects you can find.  You can play alone or with a friend.  It was a little pricey (I got it from http://www.cabelas.com/)

but you can find instructions for making your own here:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1890956/how_to_make_a_find_it_game.html?cat=25

My  GAME  BOY is a lot of fun.  If you don't have one, you don't know what you're missing!