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September 03, 2007
Yatzee Anyone?
Ever play Yahtzee http://www.hasbro.com/default.cfm?page=ps_results&product_id=9625? Five dice, add up numbers, see who can have the highest score? I don’t know how many times I’ve played it was kids of all ages-5 years-old to 75. I haven’t always won and this weekend was no exception, but I have played a lot.
After several walks to the creek from the cabin where I was visiting and another walk down the road to see the jewelry makers who had already left for the day, one of my favorite 7 almost 8-year-olds asked me if I’d like to play Yahtzee. Of course. I love games.
Ada does too, so the dice rattled and hit the box as she threw the dice for the first time. She studied them a moment, deciding what strategy to use. If she had three sixes should she go for sixes, three of a kind or a full house? Maybe there was even a Yahtzee in the making. I could almost feel the wheels turning as she decided. Sixes it was, and she gathered up the other two dice to see what else she could throw.
When we got to the scoring, I remembered again why I liked this game so much for the younger set. She added the first two sixes easily. Big second graders do two number addition with no problem. Then came six number three and four. Hm, that was a little trickier, but again I felt the wheels turning. If you could add six and six, it shouldn’t be hard to add 6 to twelve or six more to eighteen. Hey, that was a pretty good score.
There’s lots of addition in Yahtzee, before the afternoon was over we’d played two games. I’d lost both by the number score, but what I’d won was wonderful afternoon of watching a child figure out how to add numbers and finding it fun! I’m not sure if she even cared whether she won or lost. She’d just enjoyed the game and found there was some real meaning in learning.
Now if I could just figure out a game for subjects like economics or Japanese for the older set. Monopoly maybe for economics, but Japanese…..
Posted by Dr Joni at September 3, 2007 11:28 AM