Home Game - Get it caught!

Getting hooked on game invention, my sweetie girl came to me with great excitement one afternoon. She explained her concept of a game, which she thought was the best game invention of the century. Imagine that excitement. Sometimes, I really dislike myself for not showing good hope in her beliefs and thoughts. My mind usually wonders away when she tries to unfold long stretch of stories, especially when I'm caught at an inappropriate moment. I went 'uh ah, ok, alright, oh," as she brought me through her invention. I nodded my head and looked impressed. After which, I said, "okay, let's put words into actions." Tried to shoo her away from what I was engaged in. Oops!

She invented a simple game which just needed:

• recycle papers and 
• glue

How to play:

She grabbed some used papers, left 1 piece uncut and cut the rest into quarters. Put some glue in the middle of that big uncut piece of paper, set her challenging distance, and started throwing the quarter of papers onto the big piece, aiming to get them caught by the glue. 

In midst of whatever I was working on, I got distracted by her interesting idea and joined in! Then, she realised once the first piece got aimed, she needed to put more glue on the top piece and on and on. She also realised, that paper, being extremely light weight moved slower with air. It swayed left, right, up and down, before deciding where to land. It wasn't an easy game, I found out. But, it was doable! 

 

Her challenging space

Not too bad of a fun invention from my 4 year old.

Home game - Score it!

I've been frequently collecting trash for unknown purposes, but I knew this embedded habit of mine will be of good use some day. One afternoon, while the kids were gleefully painting outdoor, I went through my stash for egg cartons. I had a simple game invention in mind. A funfair, game stall inspired thought.

All you need:

• Egg cartons
• 3 or more colour paint
• Brushes
• Light small ball
• Pen and papers for scores 

Our colourful tray of dips

It was easy! Since the kids had brushes and paint on hand, I borrowed manpower to paint the egg cartons. We worked with 6 different colours.

Score reference

 

Dips that were painted the least times of colour, carried the heaviest point. For the remaining, we assigned randomly. With that, we came up with a scoring system.

Game's ready! Set a considerable distance from the egg cartons and ball thrower, give each thrower 3 tries to score. The game explains itself, the highest scorer after 3 tries, wins! And trust me, I thought it was an easy game, but not. Even with 3 tries, I had my ball out of the cartons, giving me 0 score. Build more cartons if you like!  

Moral of game - I thought I could get Jazz to work on her addition, but it was too many numbers to sum up for her. In any case, I grabbed opportunity to reinforce her Chinese and drilled Jare into characters recognition. I communicated the game in Mandarin, but it was alot of effort to get Jare engaged in Chinese. And, while painting, we went through the colours equation:
Blue + Yellow = Green, Blue + Red = Purple, Yellow + Red = Orange!

A simple game, but the kids got really excited over this self made game. Jazz is so much into game invention now. How did I just realized we didn't need to invest too much in paid toys?!!!

Snowboarding and Skiing is Fun!

Last weekend, together with our large kampong of 16 adults, 9 children and a dog, we trooped off for some snowy sports at Sierra, Lake Tahoe. The man and I had our first snowboarding experience, and Jazz, her first ski experience. I didn't think she would continue to be keen after doing a 3 hours lesson on day 1, but my instinct went wrong. She was all so excited and anticipated for the next lesson, after her first. While I accumulated bumps and bruises during my lesson, Jazz did well and steady throughout hers. How superb if they exceptionally allowed me into their tenderly taught lessons. Junior class seemed a better fit for me.

It was interestingly fun on how Jazz related her lesson guide to us. The travelator that brought them up slope is called the 'Magic carpet.' The 'A' sign that their ski should make to a halt is called 'Pizza.' And parallel ski, called 'French Fries' was not good for stopping. It sure got the kids hungry while learning. I'm glad she enjoyed her lessons the fun way. 

 

Looking like a pro!!!

While Jazz expressed interest in skiing, Jare showed no interests to glide with equipments on snow. We took turn to babysit him, played snow and loitered around while waiting for each other to be done with lesson. 

 

He loves snow play!

 

At the end of our trip, I gained some interest in snowboarding, but definitely not some talent to advance in it. Having done some basic skiing many years ago, I affirmed that skiing seemed easier to comprehend than snowboarding. Nah, not my excuse. The man, with more talent, flexibility and agility, had better stunts to flaunt on his snowboard. I think he has developed deep love for it.

Trying to look like a pro

 

It was a very great experience and wonderful opportunity to glide on snow with style, but everything got messed up when we failed to maneuver obstacles and humans, or halt the proper way. Fall to stop was my motto, and best, was to fall gracefully.

Snow sports can get pretty addictive. The fact of it being unfounded in our homeland, gave us good root reason to bond with it here. It was a pity that Jazz can't pursue skiing when back, but she sure had a good appetizer for the sport. While time is ticking away, we are planning to go for more!

Road trips got better with the kids, but irregular meal time gave us very famished kids. Over an extremely overdue lunch, Jazz said she was super hungry and did a swap of food bowls:

 

A very hungry daddy settling with little portion of ramen

 

You guessed it, she couldn't finish.