Easy Games for Beginning Latin

(cross posted from Chez VH)

I brought these ideas up at park day last week when a mom asked about when she could start working on Latin with her young children, which made me think some of you might like to hear about them too.

 “The Slapping Game”

Get a set of English from the Roots Up Cards (there are two sets available). Or you can make your own (with help from a website listing Greek and Latin roots like this one). Root word is on the front (a color can be used to identify whether it’s Greek or Latin), English translation and possibly derivatives on the back. My kids (and  their friends when we’ve done it as part of a class) love what has come to be known as “The Slapping Game”.

Lay out about six cards at a time with the root word facing up. You call out the English translation and the kids try to be the first one to slap the correct card (they should keep their hand on the card until you tell them which one is right – sometimes there are two correct answers if you have the Greek and Latin versions of the same word out at the same time).  To make the game more smoothly I have a rule that they can’t talk during the game unless they raise their hand. If they do talk, they have to give up one of their cards. We’ve had a lot of fun with this game and found it very motivating for the kids to study the words at home on their own.

Root-Word Certamen

Certamen is kind of a team game show played by Latin scholars in Junior Classical League competitions and such. (You can read more about Certamen on the hand-dandy Wikipedia page.) The game consists of 15 or 20 questions on a wide variety of topics. These “toss-up” questions are worth 10 points each. If your team answers a toss-up question correctly, they also get a chance to answer two bonus questions, worth 5 points each.

We do a simplified version of this, also with the English from the Roots Up Cards. I hold up a card that everyone gets a chance to translate. The team with the correct translation gets 10 points. Then they are invited (for a possible 5 points each) to identify English derivatives of the word.

Review: Blokus

Blokus
Board game for one to four players. Invented by Bernard Tavitian
2000, Sekkoia Company
www.blokus.com

Available from most toy retailers; discounted at http://www.timberdoodle.com

Blokus is more than just the most awarded game in recent history; it has almost become a phenomenon. A visit to the company website will quickly convince you how popular this game has become; international tournaments, online demonstrations, interactive Internet-based games, and even a free lost-part replacement service are just some of the features. After playing the game for several months, we are convinced that these awards are well-deserved!

Blokus is a strategy game in which a player attempts to place 21 differently- shaped pieces in one of four colors. The pieces are similar to those in a set of Pentominoes, ranging in size from 1 block to 5 blocks in varying regular shapes. The pieces can be rotated or flipped to help in placing them on the board. Pieces lock into the base grid, helping to preserve the developing game board as new pieces are laid. The winner is the player who has the fewest number of blocks left to place. A new player can learn to play literally in a minute or less. He can continue to play without mastering the game for weeks. Despite our experience with strategy games, and our desire to find "the" answer, we haven't yet found a consistent strategy that always wins. Numerous variations to the rules are available both in the box and on the Internet. It is possible to play solo, but we found it more enjoyable to play against another player.

In our homeschool, we place a high priority on critical thinking and logical analysis skills. I prefer to vary our curriculum from a book-oriented basis to a hands-on approach from term to term. Last term, I decided to focus on strategy games, and Blokus was our first-choice favorite! Even my 3-year-old became addicted to the game, despite the development of his own set of rules. Blokus is very appealing to a visual and/or spatially-oriented student, but is also exceptionally helpful in developing these skills in those of us not blessed with them naturally. In an educational setting, Blokus can also serve as a concrete example of rotations and transformations as well as an enjoyable addition to a geometry curriculum while remaining just plain fun.

Reviewed by Susan Kalis (10-26-07)

Review: Who's My Baby? Memory Matching

published by Carson-Dellosa Publishing

Memory has always been a favorite game in our family; partly because it's easy for even the young non-readers in the family and also because there are so many fun variations on the game.

Now we have a new favorite Memory game for the very youngest members of the family. The game involves matching photos of mother animals with their babies.. The cards are super heavy-duty (of a similar thickness to the original Memory games but more like the size of playing cards) with lovely photographs of each animal.

There are 18 sets of animals and the suggested game method is to separate the Mom and Baby cards into two separate areas in order to make the game simpler for beginners. The game comes with a paper mat to help organize these, but that mat got shredded very quickly in our house. It really doesn't matter though, since simply dividing them into two different sections works just fine.

Available from your local educational store or from the publisher.

Getty Games

The Getty Museum in Los Angeles has some fun (and sometimes challenging!) art-related kid games on its website. Check it out here.