Unschooling Tools::Games

My friend Stephanie over at Ordinary Life Magic is doing a series of posts on tools that unschooling families are using in their days.  The first in the series is about games.  Games are something that we love, and lately Dave and I have been on a quest to find new, wonderful games to add to our collection. So much of what we have come across just does not seem to be what we are looking for and so it was with that in mind that I had recently asked Stephanie what some of their favorite games are. I was thrilled to see this wonderful post about all the games in their home, and have already started making a list of ones to add to our game cabinet.  So without further delay here's a peek inside our game cupboard:

We don't have nearly as many games as we'd like yet but the ones that we have are indeed well loved.  Some of our favorites are:

Uno.  This was the girls first card game (and as you can see by the fact that Em's hair is super short these pictures are old).  When we first started playing Uno with the girls we had to hold the cards for them but now they are able to play without much help from us.  Such a great game for color and number matching! 

Candy Land.  Another tried and true favorite (and another old picture. This time from the October Nor'easter). 

Balancing Moon.  We bought this from Magic Cabin a couple years back.  It's a simple game.  All about color matching and balancing.  It's great for the very young but also is just as much fun when your a mama (or older!)! 

 

The Ladybug Game is simply fabulous! What makes it so fabulous is how simple it is. Since reading is not required kids can easily learn the rules and play on their own. 

And we love to put our alphabet blocks to good use and play Alphabet Hide and Seek.  A game that I made up one day when the girls had their Easter baskets out and were going on treasure hunts.  Why not hunt letters?  It was a blast! You can read more about it here. 

If you have any games to recommend to us we'd love to hear about them.  So far, as a result of a trip to the lovely toy store in Concord this week, and reading Stephanie's post we're looking forward to playing Blokus, Boggle Jr., Qwirkle, Mystery Garden, Math Animals and Mighty Mind.  Can't wait to see what else we discover along the way!