Inventing board games

Tomas was at a publishing seminar on Saturday -- ALL DAY, so I had the three Little Elephants in tow. The morning started out poorly with M&B fighting over their couch-cushion-and-blanket-homes. Loads of kicking, screaming, squealing. Sigh.

Once everyone settled down they started to demand that we play a game. My choices were Uno, Bataille (French for War), or Rhyme Time (each for the gazillionth time). I hadn't had enough caffeine yet and I was wiped out by our earlier battle so I suggested that they make up a new game for us to play. Later. Much later, please.

They went for it!

[Thanks for the inspiration Kidley and Rhyme Time! Rhyme Time is a board game created by an eight year old girl]

I broke out a large sheet of paper, and the pencil-pot, and they got to work. Of couse they each had very different ideas about what the game was, what it would look like, what the rules would be, how big the squares should be... you name it. I told them that if they couldn't figure out a way to work it out that I'd have to put the paper & pencils away. Their immediate solution was to each make their own game & that we would play both later in the day.

They spent a good two hours on the project. I was so impressed at how much thought and planning went into their games, and how they reacted when we played and discovered problems with the rules. Instead of getting frustrated, they worked together (!!!) to come up with corrections, and work-arounds.

The only real mishap we ran into was when the cat threw up on B's game. Luckily, he recovered quickly & got to work on a second game.