Pick and Draw

I want to tell you about the game Pick and Draw.  This is not an official review or anything.  I’m posting this simply because I like the game and wanted to blog about it!  I won Pick and Draw in a give-away that Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations had.  I won it the day before we flew back to England (back in October), and I had to have it sent to my parents’ US address.  So, I had to wait until my parents could forward it on to me, and we received it just before Christmas.  Thank you to Jolanthe for hosting the give-away and thank you to Rich Davis (the creator of Pick and Draw) for giving it!

All of my children love to draw, so I knew this would be fun for them.  In fact, I enjoyed it myself!  The first day we tried this (at the beginning of Christmas break), my 2 older kids spent at least a few hours drawing with this game.  It was a nice quiet way to spend an afternoon…well quiet except when they were hilariously laughing over their creations!

 

Basically, you pick one card from each pile (which are color-coded and divided by facial feature) and draw a cartoon face using the features you picked.  This was easy enough for my 6-year-old to do, and both kids loved it.  They also enjoyed naming their characters and telling about them.

(Pardon the spaghetti sauce on my son’s face…)

Here are MY pictures:

You can try drawing a character yourself for free by going to the Pick and Draw website…just click THIS LINK.  You can order the game from the website for $10.  The title card says “Game 1,” so I’m hoping he’s planning to make more.  I’d definitely buy another deck!

The Minister’s Cat, Scrooge, and a Treasure Hunt

Over the Christmas break, we played a few games as a family, and I just felt like blogging about them! 

The first one I want to tell you about is "The Minister's Cat.”  Some of you may already know about this game because it's an oldie.  It was a popular parlour game during Victorian times.  People would sit in a circle and take turns describing the cat using adjectives starting with a particular letter of the alphabet. 

The first time I heard of this game was from the 1970 film Scrooge, starring Albert Finney.  When I was little, my family and I used to watch this movie when it came on TV around Christmas.  It was my favorite version of A Christmas Carol, and it featured "The Minister's Cat" game in the scene where Scrooge watches his nephew's Christmas party.  After a few years of watching it as a child (very early 80s), I never saw it again until last year!  When I was a teenager I ran across an old book of party games and found "The Minister's Cat" in it.  I did get some friends to play it with me a few times.  Anyway, last year I found the movie here in England and bought it.  There are a few scary parts, but I let my children watch it this year.  They loved it! 

So last night, my son started a game of "Minister's Cat" with me.  My husband even joined it with us for awhile.  The wonderful thing about this game is that it's educational.  My son had to think up a lot of good adjectives, something he needed practice on anyway.  He did come up with some nouns a few times:  "The minister's cat is a dog cat...”  He also made up a few new adjectives like “ever-lovable” for "e.”  So I often had to make him come up with better adjectives.  In the Scrooge movie, you kept the same letter until someone was out, and then the next person would start with the next letter.  When we played (since there were only 3 of us), we used one letter until we got tired of it or couldn't think of any more. 

Here's a sample with the letter "c":
Me--"The minister's cat is a crazy cat."
Isaac--"The minister's cat is a cocky cat."
Me--"The minister's cat is a cuddly cat."
Isaac--"The minister's cat is a cheeky cat."
Me--"The minister's cat is a Canadian cat."
Isaac--"The minister's cat is a calendar cat..." (sorry, that’s a noun, Isaac…) "...cooked cat."  (um, okay...)
Me--"The minister's cat is a cozy cat."
Isaac--"The minister's cat is a caked cat."                      Me--"The minister's cat is a colorful cat."
Isaac--"The minister's cat is a commendable cat." (I’m not sure he knows what that means, but he came up with it himself!)
Me--"The minister's cat is a comical cat."
Isaac--"The minister's cat is a cuckoo cat."  (hmm)
Me--"The minister's cat is a confident cat."
Isaac--"The minister's cat is a criminal cat."
Me--"The minister's cat is a cute cat."

Anyway, yesterday we played from A to P before we got tired of it.  It's fun if you have a lot of people, but we enjoyed it anyway.  We’ll definitely play this game the next time we have a lesson on adjectives!

The second game we played is Treasure Hunt.  You've all probably played some version of this game at some point in your lives (if you haven’t, you really ought to), but it simply involves hunting for a prize using clues.  Each clue leads you to another clue until you find the "treasure."  We've made this a Christmas Eve tradition with our kids.  We make and hide clues for them, leading to a present they get to open early (because we open most of our gifts on Christmas morning).  In the past, I've enjoyed writing out clues, but this year I wanted to do something different.  So, I took close-up pictures of things around the house and printed off the pictures as clues.  This enabled my early reader Moriah and my non-reader Gabriela to find clues without having to read them.  I arranged the clues so that each child could take a turn.  Isaac's were the hardest, and Gabriela's were the easiest.  I kind of overdid the number of clues I had...I couldn't stop taking pictures!  I got lots of exercise running up and down the stairs trying to hide all the clues quickly.  Then I let Greg help the kids hunt the clues since I was so worn out.  The kids loved searching for the clues and finding their present.  Here's a few of the picture clues I made them:

 

And here they are opening their prize: 

What are your family’s favorite games to play around Christmas?

Seatwork and Thinking Skills

The first thing I have Isaac do each morning is either his Spectrum Test Practice booklet for Grade 3 or a math practice page OR thinking skills books and games. Though we are not required in England (or in Missouri) to test our children, I like to know that he's caught up (or ahead of) the average 3rd grader. : )

Here are some of our favorite tools for seatwork and thinking skills:



The math practice book we use is called Math Mysteries: Addition by Mary Hyek (Frank Schaffer Publications). You add problems and color the spaces to make a picture. I think I picked it up at a yard sale some years ago. Here's a picture Isaac did from this book:


We also use puzzles of all sorts and fun books too! I would LOVE to bring back my I Spy books next time we're in America. I have several nice ones in storage. Here are a few more fun books we have:

Teacher Dad

My husband stays pretty busy, not only doing various ministries as a missionary in England, but also doing loads around the house! Yes, I am one of those very blessed women whose husband does a lot of housework and some of the cooking. He pretty much leaves the homeschooling up to me because I have a teaching degree, so he feels I'm the one to oversee it. Every now and then, he kicks in to "principal" mode if he notices that I'm having to get on the kids to focus on their work. Sometimes he does P.E. with them, too. Generally, though, it's my job to teach.

Recently I had a ladies' day out with a few friends. We took a train down to London to attend the Country Living Christmas Craft Fair. The dads stayed home with the kids (yes, the dads have had several guys' days out too--hiking trips). Since this event was on a Thursday, Greg got to substitute teach for me! How fun! I wrote out detailed instructions to put in each workbox for him to follow. It was great because I received a few text messages from Greg during the day. On the first he told me what each of the kids was doing. He told how he had come up with a rhyme for Isaac to remember 6x4. "6x4 fell on the floor, picked it up and it was 24!" Later I received another text about how much Greg was enjoying teaching the kids, and he said, "I love being a Dad!" I'm glad he had that opportunity, and it was lovely for me to have a day off!

I had a great time in London and bought several Christmas ornaments and a few other items. I also bought a magnetic fishing set for the kids. They enjoy playing with it, but I'm trying to think of some creative activities and educational games I could use it for. Any ideas???