Thursday, December 27, 2007
Recycled Christmas
Posted by Missy W. @ 12:00 PM
This year for Christmas, my sister came up with a new gift-giving strategy for the family. At least 50% of our gifts were to be recycled from our own homes. No, not something made out of old plastic bottles, but items that had been loved but were ready for a new home. It was really fun to spend the past couple of months deciding what each family member would actually appreciate the most from my life and our home. Alas, I could not shove the old Ikea sofa off on anyone, but there’s always next year. Lots of books and DVDs were exchanged, silver serving dishes, clothing, and my niece got to give Sy lots and lots of old toys and books.
My niece gave Sy this great set of domino cards. At 2.5, she does not really get the concept of the game yet, but my guess is she’ll get a kick out of matching up the colorful pictures. What a cool way to learn number recognition. Right now she loves to throw the sturdy cardboard cards around and talk about the pictures on them.
I don’t know about you, but I am terrible at reading directions. I have to learn by watching most of the time. Lucky for me, the box said that there was an “easy-to- follow instruction sheet” and even luckier for me, my sister had the presence of mind to save it for us. They were in fact, easy to follow, but I liked the most was their tip for helping kids learn to take turns, “Wearing a hat when a player has a turn is one fun approach for you to consider; no hat means no go!” I should incorporate the hat rule into a LOT of games for Sy’s play group.
Snapshot
• Like I said, we aren’t using the dominoes the way you are supposed to right now, but that’s what I love about open ended toys, you can let it morph as your child’s skill set grows.
• Fun, basic card game for 1-4 players, ages 3 to 5
• Reinforces observation and matching
• The cards are in really great shape for being hand-me-downs. I wonder if that means they are really well built or if my niece never played with them, I’ll have to ask.
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March 5, 2008 @ 12:30 AM
steve said:
I like this one. Does it deliver anywhere in the world? I’m from Philippines and would like to purchase.