The Broomball Craze Has Hit

Broomball is the poor man's hockey.  Well it is, the way we play.  Expensive equipment can be purchased, but we've found it to be more fun with cheap kitchen brooms and a small playground ball.

How do you play broomball?

Simple.  Gather a group of sturdy people.  Ice is slippery.  Ice is hard.  A broom to the face hurts.  Make sure the players are sturdy!  Head to the ice.  Hand everyone a broom.  Pick teams.  Choose a goalie.  Toss up the ball, let the centers take it from there.  Any somewhat intuitive person can figure out that the goal is to get the ball into the opposing teams goal.  A point is scored and the game continues.  We usually play to ten.

The players go down.

The players come back.

The ball is out of bounds; a little broom fight breaks out to get it back in.

We let the little kids play.  It keeps us from getting too violent.

Broomball is an excellent cardio workout.

There's always a lot of smiles and crazy faces.  Running on ice does that to a person.

The game is heating up.

Defending your team's goal is serious business.  Everyone has their own style.

Time for a break.

If broomball is done right, a snowball fight should break out after a couple of games.

Smells like Teen Spirit - these kids are going to sleep well tonight.

If you're looking for a great way to get your kids some fresh winter air, tire them out and maybe even a couple victory bruises......BROOMBALL is your game.

More Fine Motor Skills Development

I posted a few ideas the other day.  And now I want to share a game Nick made up for Little J.  I had these bears in cups tucked away from Sam's toddler days and ran across them when I was searching frantically for a lost phonics book, which by the way I never found.  After Little J explored the cups and bears for a while, Nick set out just two cups and the coordinating bears.  When Joseph would pick up a bear, Nick would say the color and then point to the same colored cup trying to get him to place the bear in the right cup.  Amber would actually sign the colors for him, too.  She learned those at the Down Syndrome Awareness Walk when Rachel Coleman did Signing Time Live.  Anyway, if Joseph would try putting a yellow bear in the green cup he would quickly cover up the green cup so he'd put the right bear in the right cup.  This has turned out to be a great learning opportunity for Joseph.  Nick and Amber play this with him often switching up the colors.  He's getting better at placing the right bear in the right cup, but his favorite is transferring the bears from one cup to another and then back again.  He will do this for quite some time before moving on to his normal activity...emptying every shelf, cupboard, drawer and basket.

Educational Games

One child needed a little extra practice with identifying adjectives today.  I found this site with an array of educational games.  I liked the fact that it didn't require running any add-ons, but it is full of advertisements.  From what we saw, nothing offensive - satellite TV, makeup, airline tickets.  The adjective game is found in the English category.  I like doing online games because it gives the kids a chance to practice computer skills and discerning pertinent info from the unimportant info.  Sometimes kids get distracted by the advertising and don't know what they're really supposed to be reading at a particular site.  Anyway if you don't mind viewing an add before playing each game you might want to check out EZSchool.com

Thursday Game Day

At the beginning of this school year we added to our schedule Game Day. Every Thursday we set aside as the day to play games in the morning before seat work. I had envisioned games like Scrabble, Yahtze, Chutes 'n Ladders, card games of all sort, multiplication BINGO, Guess Who...games that had the potential to practice skills learned during regular seat work. I envisioned wrong. Most Thursdays when it was warm we played Inny-I-Over and now that it's been cold they want to play Hide-n-Seek in the house. Today I heard the cutest thing as I was hiding behind a bunch of coats and snowpants hanging on a hook.

Nicholas - This game would be a lot more fun if all the good hiding places didn't cause suffocation.

Science? Health? Vocabulary? What subject would this fit into?

Kids' Funnies

It's haircut time around here for all the boys. We were discussing what type of cut each wanted and Sam asked:

Can you bald me around the edges and leave a mohawk in the middle?

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Amber is always full of her own words; here are her latest dictionary entries:

shaggy pants - stretchy knit culottes/split skirt

hannatizer - lazy man's version of hand sanitizer

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The newest game around here is just a remake of an old favorite. Hide 'n Seek is fun with people, but how about with kittens. The kids bring the five kittens into the porch, close their eyes, and wait for the kittens to run off and "hide". Then they search for the kittens. Simple, but by the squeals and giggles I hear is obviously tons of fun.

Writing Fun

Rarely do you find the words writing and fun together, at least not in my house. When I suggest (well require) someone write a Haiku or book report or thank you notes or grocery list for me or spelling list or complete sentences for anything, I'm met with lots of grumbling.

How will this help me someday? 

 Why can't reading the book be good enough? 

 I'm not a speller. 

 Poetry is stupid. 

Games are great for helping kids learn to write quickly, spell without asking, and write legibly.  Here's one game I use to sneak in some spelling practice.

If spelling isn't a favorite subject and you need to sneak it into your school day, then you need the game Eye to Eye. It can be purchased from a SimplyFun dealer. If you're not familiar, SimplyFun is another home party like Tupperware or MaryKay but it's all games. At the party you play a bunch of the games to get a feel for them and then you get a chance to buy them. Now, the games are pricey, but very fun and excellent quality. My whole family had so much fun playing Eye to Eye at the party that we bought it. But I didn't buy the starter set, just one of the add on sets. This game will not get your kids writing complete sentences or Haikus, but it will help them think quickly and write those words down. The more familiar you are with your alphabet, spelling rules and forming letters the better player you will be. Here's how we play. It works best with 3 or more people. Each person gets a pad of paper, pencil and then some chips (dry beans). We use 10 or more per person depending on how long we want to play. The object of the game is to get rid of your beans first. The first person picks a card and chooses a topic, say Classic Disney Films. Then everyone writes down 3 Classic Disney Films. The person who chose the topic reads their list and if anyone else matches, they both place one of their beans in the middle, thus getting closer to winning. Once everyone has read their list and matched with whoever they could the next person draws a card and chooses a topic. We let the person choosing the topic draw as many cards as they want until they find a topic they like. This has helped our 7 year old learn to write quick and not worry so much about spelling because if she asks how to spell Cinderella then everyone knows that's on her list and it's not as much fun. She has, however, found out that spelling is important. For example, tonight she wrote 'PUCiVy' as a term of endearment. When it was her turn to read her list she tried sounding it out and became confused by what she had written. At that point she said, "I better learn to spell better." Now that's what I call real learning and natural consequences. No one could match with her because she didn't even know what she'd written. SimplyFun's Eye to Eye is a great game to get kids writing and having fun at the same time

*I did not get paid to say any of this; we just enjoy the game and have found it to be a great learning tool.

Jump Roping...it's not just for kids

DH was out doing marsh work tonight, so it was me and the kids. We cleaned up the yard and organized the garage. Seems you always find something "new" when organizing. We came across the jump ropes we bought last year, a single jumper and a group jumper. Even though the thermometer was reading 99 degrees in the sun, we just couldn't resist taking a few jumps. Ray liked doing the snake jump; the people at either end of the rope just slither it back and forth on the ground and he tries to jump over. The rest of us had a blast perfecting our "jumping in" technique. Then I started in with Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear turn around, Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear touch the ground. Well, I couldn't remember what came next so Lee suggested we Google it. Great Idea! In less than 1 minute we had a whole list of jump rope rhymes. We printed out 3 and headed back outside and jumped until our legs just about fell off. Check these rhymes out; there are many that are perfect for sneaking in summer school without the kids even knowing it.