Games for the Boys

As we buy toys for our boys we try to choose things they are interested in, such as trains and animals, but we also look for things that will teach at the same time as being fun. We avoid the commercialized, TV themed toys and games, and always enjoy finding things that we remember playing as children.

Books are one thing that both boys love. They read a lot, both by themselves and with us. It is not uncommon to have one or the other coming up with a stack of books wanting to be read to.

We have Chutes and Ladders; this game gives us a chance to count with Edmund and he really likes making his person go up and down the ladders and slides (as he calls them). If you are not familiar with this game, it involves the very simple use of the spinner to determine the number of spaces to move. Then there are good deeds, that allow you to go up a ladder, or bad deeds, that make you go down a chute. Edmund doesn't understand that going down is bad and going up is good, but we do talk about the pictures and the results of the good or bad deeds.Sometimes, instead of buying something we make it ourselves. Jaired is especially a game lover, and some day would like to make a "real" game, that is one for adults. For now he is starting on children's games. Jaired draws a lot and when we make games he gravitates toward the initial artwork, while I cut out the cards and color in the pictures.

We took one of the boys' favorite books and created a game which is played similar to Candy Land.

Go, Dog. Go! by P.D. Eastman is a fun little book about dogs, though really not so much about dogs as about colors, opposites, and a little bit of counting.


The playing pieces are, of course, dogs.

The players draw cards to determine their move. The main cards are the colored squares, indicating where to go. There are special cards that one gets to keep for the dog party at the end of the game, and there are other special cards that make you skip a turn, go forward, or back, etc.

Two shortcuts allow some variations in the game. In this game there is no one person who is the winner. Everyone keeps drawing cards until all are at the Party Tree.

This game helps with colors of course, but it is also fun for Edmund to see the different things that he is familiar with from the book. And he really likes the end of the game when we can "put on" the party hats, "eat" the birthday cake and ice cream, and "open" the birthday presents.

The second game we have made is Memory.

This is a very simple game to make and play. If you aren't an artist you could even print off pictures from your computer. You just need two of each picture. We currently have eleven pairs of cards (above are just my favorites), which is perfect for Edmund's attention span and playing level, but we may make more cards as he improves. Little children tend to turn over the same cards again and again, which means they never win. When we play, I encourage Edmund to look at cards he hasn't seen yet. I also will occasionally throughout the game go back over the cards we have looked at (without turning them over) and remember aloud what they are, to help Edmund grasp the concept of the game.

In addition to games, Jaired had made toys for the boys out of wood. Again, our woodworking tools are limited, but someday we hope to have the means to make really nice, durable toys.

These wooden blocks were made with a table saw out of regular 1"x2" boards. They work on a similar concept to Legos, starting with a small square, "one-size," and moving up by increments. Some of the ones pictured above were made by Jaired and some by his dad and brother.

Jaired also makes wooden swords, shields, and battleaxes. All three of them like to spar together, though Nathaniel often finds the action to be a bit too much for him. These wooden toys are all works in progress, as Jaired improves the design every time he makes another weapon or block.