"There's an old saying..."

Last night we had a fabulous dinner with new friends in our town--and played a great game totally new to us: Wise and Otherwise. It brought out both our funny sides, out poetic sides, and our most generous selves.

One player draws a card and reads the beginning of a saying from another culture. Other players have to guess or make up an ending and write it down. Players then vote for what they think it the right answer--or the funniest.

An example:

There is an old Russion saying, "No grease...":

1. No grease makes the iron pot brittle.
2. No grease could make Lenin's vodka smooth
3. No grease, no ride.
4. No grease make the blinis burn.
5. No grease makes a strong heart.
(answer in the comments)


A few other favorites from the evening--only one of which was true (answer in the comments):

1. There is an old Italian saying, "Old meat makes...the wisest salami."

2. There is an old saying, "You can saddle a horse and ride it well, but you can't lead it to water."

3. There is an old saying, "Water does not cleanse us to the bone"

4. There us an old saying, "The sea never buys fish."

5. There is an old Swedish saying, "Don't throw out the old watering can until you buy a new one from Ikea."


Highly recommended for mixed-age groups!

Are You Game?

We've been having lots of fun and studying homeschool math at the same time with a wonderful game called Equate.It is a game very much like Scrabble but instead of using letters to build words, players use numbers to build equations.

Beginning several years ago, we used the Junior tiles. After using the Junior tiles for a while, players are ready for the regular tiles.

Recently we've started playing with the Advanced tileswhich include negative and positive integers, integer exponents, and more fractions.

It took me a while to get in the swing of thinking about negative exponents again...



For those looking for homeschooling mathematics fun and games, we also love ThinkFun Math Dice.

SET!

My in-laws have been visiting us for the past week. Last night we said our goodbyes and they are now on the train to their home in Florida. It was a long week--full of adventures on occasion, but also a restructuring of our days because of their physical and emotional limitations. Keeping up with an active ten-year-old boy can exhaust anybody!

Days of rain also kept us indoors more than we would like--but a stash of favorite games kept us entertained. Fundamentally, I am not much of a game person. I don't like games based primarily on luck, and I don't like those that stress competition or the importance of winning. When the two combined, I am likely to whine quite a bit.

One game I really love, though, is SET. The object of the game is to identify sets of three cards. Each card has four features: color (red, green or blue/purple), symbol (diamond, squiggle or oval), shading (solid, striped or open), and number (1, 2 or 3). A "set" consists of three cards on which each feature is either the same on all of the cards, or different on all of the cards. For example, you could have a set with 3 cards where all are red, all are squiggles, there is one of each type of shading, and there is one of each number.



What games do you play with your family? We'd love to be introduced to some new ones!