Have I mentioned that I was dragged into homeschooling kicking and screaming?
You see, I started on this for my daughter’s sake, not for mine, and for her sake I’ve been noticing lots of things about my parenting.
Case in point: games. I remember vividly when a parent related to me once said, “I don’t like doing things with my kids. Don’t get them gifts that require my participation.” I thought this was weird.
But then Heddi at the Resource Center one day was talking about how great it is to use games for learning. Games, I thought. I don’t like playing games with my kids. But I figured I should give it a try.
I brought home Presto Change-o. Within two weeks, my six-year-old could make change for a variety of amounts, and my son, who always agonized over the simplest sums, started to do them quickly.
And I had…fun.
This week we have Smart Mouth and Gobblet. Smart Mouth is a shoe-in for any family that loves Scrabble. It’s faster and sillier than Scrabble, with more chance for input by everyone and less of a competitive focus. Gobblet is like tic-tac-toe on steroids. It has revealed to me the source of my discomfort with game playing with kids.
The thing about Gobblet is, if I ever played it straight with my kids, I’d win before I even felt like we’d gotten anywhere. So I can’t play it straight, but I feel like I owe it to them not to play it completely dumb. The first time I played it with my ten-year-old, I had to tell him, Oh, please don’t let me win on my fourth move! He looked down, amazed that I could attain such a feat.
So I’ve had to develop a method for playing smart…with help. I’ve told my kids that in any one game I will let them take back moves till I feel like they’ve made the same mistake often enough to learn from it. And sometimes I break the game to say, “Look, if you do that then I do this then you do that…then I win.” In games like Gobblet, strategy is everything.
When playing with my peers, I love games of strategy. When playing with my kids, a game that depends heavily on chance can be a breath of fresh air.
The last few days have been rainy and we’ve had vacation from almost everything. So we’ve been at home playing lots of games. To a certain extent, my other problem with playing games is that I sometimes feel like I’m not doing anything. But on long rainy days with kids in the house, we got the fire going and set ourselves down on the rug for game after game. It was something like my childhood.
Then I remember who I’m modeling myself after. My parents didn’t have to play games with us. The great thing about a family with five kids is that you have a built-in party for any occasion and a built-in babysitter, or two, for when you want to check out. My parents didn’t have to suggest our long games of Scrabble, Monopoly, Hearts, and Gin Rummy. There was always someone to play with, someone who not only didn’t have to play dumb but wouldn’t have anyway. When I was smaller, I expected that I’d lose. I watched what the big kids did and learned.
This small family thing is a whole new dynamic. And homeschooling means that for five schooldays a week, it’s just me and her. And games it will be.
I agree with Heddi, that they learn a lot from games. But after a long, rainy weekend of playing, it was such a relief to sit down with my daughter while my husband was making dinner and color. We’d bought a used Victorian Stained Glass coloring book from the library for $.75 (that’s $.25 change from a dollar, you know). She and I sat and colored. She hummed. I colored. And I didn’t have to play dumb. My window is intricate and detailed, like me. Hers is bold and wild, like her.
Now there’s a game I understand.
