When we got home, we cracked one of the board games open and started playing it.  Smarty Pants loved it and we had more fun than Paris Hilton at a birthday bash.

All this board game fun got me thinking – whatever happened to family fun playing board games?  Do you ever hear of families having fun together playing board games anymore?  I’m sure there are families out there with older kids that have family board game fun, but do any parents out there with 3 or 4 year olds play board games with them?

Some of my fondest childhood memories are of playing board games with my family and friends.  Whether Scrabble, Monopoly, Sorry, or Checkers, I was on those games like a fat kid on french fries.  I’ve spoken to many parents who share the same sentiments.  Board games are fun, educational, and provide the perfect opportunity to bond with, and teach, your kids.  Most importantly, you can play them with young kids too.

I asked the owner of our local toy store recently why he doesn’t carry any board games for young kids.  His answer:  They don’t sell well.  Why?  Because parents more often buy something that their young kids can play with independently.  Board games are more work and take more time and involvement.

Maybe parents also don’t realise that you can play a board game with a three or four year old, or can’t be bothered to try.

This is a reflection of how changing times affect our family activities and the time we spend bonding with our kids.  In our hectic lives, we would rather hand our kids something that will occupy them than take the time to sit and play a game with them.  It’s a pity, because board games are fun, and are the perfect opportunity to spend time with your kids.  Think back to your own childhood, and I’m sure you can remember having family fun over a beloved board game.

If you have a young child, try playing a simple board game with her.  I guarantee you a fun, bonding, experience.

Here are some great board games that we like, that can be played with children as young as 3 years old:

Enchanted Forest: We bought this game at the swap meet and it looks awesome.  It is a Ravensburger game, so you know you can’t go wrong. The game involves looking for treasures under trees in the forest, and remembering where they are to report them back to the King.  Different variations of the game can be played, depending on the age level.  For younger children, you can play a simple version that just involves collecting the trees as you move along the board.  The more complex version (which is great for when the kids get a bit older) involves memory, strategy, and the use of “magic.”   I’m really looking forward to playing this one!  Smarty Pants already had a great time setting up the little wooden trees on the colourful board, and  laying out the magical cards.

The Squirrel Game: Another one from Ravensburger that we got at the swap meet.  We recently played this together and had a blast.  This game comes with little squirrels carrying wheelbarrows, a bunch of little pine cones, the game board, and special die.  Each player is a squirrel, running around the game board collecting pine cones to bring back home.  You collect the pine cones in your little wheelbarrow.  When you have more than six pine cones in your wheelbarrow, you have to dump them out because it is too heavy for the squirrel to carry.  If you meet another player along the way, you can either take up to three of his pine cones, or give him up to three of your pine cones to lighten your load – which adds a bit of strategy to the game.  The player that collects the most pine cones at his home wins.  It’s really cute game that I don’t think is on the market any longer, unfortunately.

Orchard (Obstgarten): This is a cool game from the German toy titanic “Haba” – one of the best toy companies in the world.  This game is a top seller in Germany and Austria, but doesn’t seem to be as well known in North America.  We have it and have had lots of fun playing it.  It is a cooperative game, where you roll a nice wooden die, and depending on the colour you roll, you pick a wooden fruit from a tree and put it in your basket (e.g. if you roll red, you pick a cherry, if you roll green, you pick an apple, etc.)  If you roll “the Raven”, then you put a piece of the raven puzzle together.  If the raven puzzle is built before all the players collect all the fruit, then the raven wins.  If you collect all the fruit before the raven puzzle is complete, then all the players win.  We have a lot of fun with this and it is great for learning about fruits and colours.  The little baskets for collecting the fruit are really cute, and the pieces are all high quality solid wood.  I also like that this is a cooperative game.

So there you have it, some fun ideas to get you started back in the world of board games and to help you revive your family board game night.  Do you have a favourite board game or childhood board game memory?  Do you agree that parents don’t generally try to play board games with younger kids?  Leave a comment and let us know!

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home

Seriously though, this is a really nice idea for something you can do with the kids to get them started mixing

and mashing things.  It is easy and cheap to do, and it gives you and your kids a nice little memory as well.  You can even teach them about fossilization at the same time, if they are old enough to understand what fossilization is.  Otherwise, just mention dinosaurs and they will be happy to participate.

The idea is simple:  make some salt dough, put your child’s hand or foot print in the salt dough, let it dry, and hang it on the wall for everyone to see.  Then in 13-15 years, when your child brings home his or her first girlfriend or boyfriend, put it on the coffee table as an item for discussion.  Its all about having fun, right?

Here is what you will need:

• 2 cups of flour
• 1 cup of salt
• 1 cup of water
• 1 teaspoon of oil
• 1 baking sheet

Mix all the ingredients together really well.  Place the resulting dough in a freezer bag and toss it in the fridge for 2 hours.  This will let it rest and also dissolve the salt crystals.  Speaking of rest, go take a nap, you’ve worked hard.

After your two hour nap, haul yourself out of bed and haul the dough out of the fridge.  Add flour or water to the dough as necessary to get the right consistency.  You don’t want it to be too sticky or wet, but not too dry or crumby either.  You’ll know when you’ve got it.

Roll the dough on the baking sheet into whatever shape tickles your (or your child’s) fancy.  Make sure it is about 2 or 3 centimeters (about an inch) thick.

Ask Junior to leave his or her mark on your household’s dough of fame.  This can be a hand or foot print, or both.  You can use a toothpick to carve in a name and date, and even poke a hole in the top if you want to hang it up.

Place your masterpiece in the oven to bake at 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit) for 3 hours or let it dry at room temperature on both sides for 4-5 days.

You can then hang it on the wall, put it on a shelf, bring it to the office, or use it as an over-sized key chain.  Whatever you like.  What is important is that you had fun, you made a memory and you took a nap.  And you did it all for less than the price of a cup of coffee.

Join the jam and tell us your ideas for fun, inexpensive and creative crafts you do with your kids.  If you make a salt dough memory and want to share it, submit it to me and I will post it!  Or post it on your blog and I will link to it!

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home

Parents often ask me how we prepared our first child, who is now 2 and a half, for the arrival of our daughter, who is now almost two months old.  This is a hot topic, as it is a challenge that every family of two or more faces.

I have heard many stories of older siblings trying to stuff the newborn back into mama’s belly (or something to that effect).  This made me decide to write this article, where I share my ideas on how dads and parents can help prepare their first child for the arrival of their new little one.  Here we go:

1. Before the new baby is born, buy a doll (or human-looking toy if you don’t like dolls) for your first child.  Call the doll “little sister” or “little brother” and explain to your child that soon a little sister or little brother will be arriving, and that he can use the doll to practice how he will play with the baby or help take care of the baby once it arrives.  This gets him used to the idea of having a little bro/sis around, and provides an opportunity to start teaching him that he has to be gentle with the little baby.
2. If your child does not already sleep in her own bed, now is a good time to start getting her into a bed (a full size bed is best – I’ll explain why later).  I say this based on our experience and from talking to other dads.  Before our daughter was born, our son still came to our bed at night from time to time, although he had his own bed.  Now, if he wakes up at night, we try to still have him stay in his own bed.  This is because our baby daughter is in our room, and if she wakes up at night, she would wake him up too.  This would lead to him being tired and cranky the next day, which is something we definitely do not want!  So if you will have your baby in your room, and your first child is still in your room, now is the time to try to switch it up.
3. Think about getting a full size bed for your first child.  This is related to my point above.  If your first child wakes up at night (our son started waking up more often after our daughter was born), and you need to go to comfort him, it will be more comfortable for you to do so in a bigger bed.  I spoke to one dad who got a queen-size bed for their first daughter for this reason.  “Smart thinking!” is what I thought!  Even though the bed might fill up the child’s whole room, it is called a bed-room, right?
4. Around the time you (meaning, your wife) are expecting to give birth, get a gift for your first child that is “from the baby.”  This will help your first child to feel more like the baby is her friend.  Lets face it, most children are around the age of 1-4 when their younger sibling is born.  At that age, right or wrong, kids love getting new toys and tend to like the people who give them the toys.  So, a gift from the baby will increase the chances that your first child will take kindly to the baby.  Keep reinforcing the fact that the gift is from the baby.  This gift is also helpful because if it is really something your child enjoys, it gives him something to do while you are looking after the baby.  We got our son a marble run from our newborn daughter, and he still loves playing with it.
5. Get some books about being a big brother or big sister and read them to your first child.  This one is kind of a no-brainer.  It reinforces all the usual ideas about being an older sibling, being proud about it, looking after the baby and being gentle with it, etc etc.
6. Get a T-shirt that says “Big Brother” or “Big Sister” on it (not for you, for your child – if you are interested in T-shirts for you, check here).  This will help to make your child proud of the fact that he/she is a big brother/sister.  It can also help him/her to get into the role a bit more.  It will also give you a chance to wash your child’s other favorite t-shirt.
7. When your newborn arrives, take time to reinforce your love for your first child.  This can be a challenge, because a newborn is so time consuming, but it is the most important thing you can do.  Do your best to spend some good quality one-on-one time with your first child every day.

With the right preparation and the right amount of time taken to tend to your first child, you can make this transition a smoother one.  It is a big change for your first child to go through, so you can expect some bumps along the way.  I hope you enjoyed these tips and that they help to make those bumps fewer and further between….especially if you don’t have shock absorbers.

By the way, you can find more great thoughts and tips on this topic at another great fatherhood blog… check it out on Building Camelot’s “Bringing Home a Second Baby” post.

If you have any ideas or would like to share what you have done to ease this transition for your child, please join the jam and share your comments here!  Peace!

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home

Cheers!

Of course, we don’t have a kite, so our first stop was the Granville Island Kid’s Market, where there is a pretty cool store that sells all kinds of kites.  Bypassing the “beginner” $100 models, we settled on an “easy to fly” version with a pretty dolphin on top, with a price tag that was reasonable enough that we could let our boy fly it into a tree with minimal regret or guilt.  Our son chose the one with the dolphin… I had taken quite nicely to one with the skull and crossbones, but I was overruled.  Actually, we gave our boy a choice between the dolphin one and an octopus one.  “That one..” he said, with absolute certainty, pointing to the dolphin one.  And so the dolphin one it was.  We forked over the 22 bucks and headed on our way (not before stopping at Pedro’s for a coffee and a cookie, of course).

After a short walk (that seemed rather long) through a goose-poo-peppered path, we arrived at our destination.  Vanier Park.  The wind was blowing well, so we were set to go.

A few failed attempts at flying the kite later, we managed to get some decent elevation.  We were all stoked.  Except for our boy of course.  He held the string a few times, but was more concerned with the amount of goose-poo on the ground.  I pondered the mystery of the goose-poo for a bit.  “There is a $2000 dollar fine for dogs to poo here,” I thought, “yet these 10 or 20 geese here can poo all around to their heart’s content (and they do), without so much as having to drop a dime.”  Who’s fining the geese?  A mystery that may never be solved, but a real cash-cow that is not being capitalized on by our Parks Board.

So I held our boy in my arms (he refused to stand amons so much poo), sweet wife held our daughter in the sling, and we were having more fun flying the kite than the kids.  At least it let me get in touch with my inner child again… it had already been a few hours since I had done that.

“I want to go to the playground” exclaimed our boy, amid complaints of the abundance of goose-poo on the ground.  So we packed it in and started heading back.  Shortly after, he was asleep on my shoulder.  Now he’ll probably be up till 10pm tonight.

It was a fun time overall and we all really enjoyed it, despite the small hiccups along the way.  And what did our boy say when I pointed up at the kite earlier, asking him to take a look at the pretty kite?  …..  “I want the octopus.”  Argh.

One of the best features common to all of these books is that there is some degree of repetition (I guess that is common to a lot of children’s books). What our son like about this repetition is that he can memorize certain sentences and know when they are coming up, so reading the book together becomes and interactive experience that he really enjoys.
Here are the books currently at the top of our bedtime list:
1) The Gruffalo, by Julia Donaldson – recommended for children 2 years and up. This is a classic book with a nice story about a quick-thinking mouse that outwits a fox, an owl, a snake and of course, a Gruffalo! It has good repetition of certain elements, and the sentences in the story also rhyme (in an AABBCC… fashion), so after just a couple of times reading this, our son could already start to complete some sentences on his own as I was reading them.
2) Wanted: The Great Cookie Thief, A Sesame Street book – this one is a bit hard to find but can still be found online. Our copy is actually the copy that I had when I was just a young tike, so reading this brings back memories of my childhood. Our son also loves it because it is about one of his favourite topics… cookies… and it also has some repetitive aspects, so he can predict what is going to happen next.
3) Room on the Broom, by Julia Donaldson – another one by the author of The Gruffalo. We actually bought this one first and liked it so much that we bought the Gruffalo. This is a really nice story about a witch that takes a dog, a bird and a frog with her on her broom, along with her cat, and when they meet up with a dragon, they all help to rescue her. There is a great theme of friendship and cooperation. Like the Gruffalo, this story rhymes and has repetition, so we can have a good interactive read.
4) The Ernie and Bert Book, A Sesame Street Book – like the Great Cookie Thief, this is another classic from my childhood that our son loves. It can still be found online, not sure if it is in any stores any longer. This one was at the top of our list for awhile. Our son practically had it memorised because we read it so many times. This is the story of what happens when Ernie broke the piggy bank, so he had to put the money in the cookie jar, and the cookies in the milk bottle, and the milk in the… you get the idea. It goes on like this and is lots of fun.
5) Speedy Fire Engine, A Wheelie Boards Book. This book is shaped like a fire engine and has wheels. It is a simple story that rhymes. It is just a few pages about a fire engine that quickly goes to put out a fire. I think our son mostly likes this one because he likes fire trucks. Today he kept repeating, “Speedy Fire Engine!” about a million times. He also likes to turn the wheels on this book as I am reading it to him.
So that is our current top five… I would definitely recommend checking these out if you are looking for some new books for your kids and don’t have these already.

Join the jam and tell us your favourite bedtime books!

Join the jam! What is your coolest and most attention getting accessory/kid’s toy?