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 Thursday, October 26, 2006

Julie and I started the Game On! class this week at Matthew's school (read more here and here).  We ended up doing two classes to accomodate the 40 kids that signed up.  The Wednesday class is mostly 3rd/4th graders and the Thursday class is 4th/5th graders.  Julie will usually teach Wed and I'll take Thu, though with my travel schedule we will often flip things around.

Julie and I tag-teamed our first class on Wednesday.  We started with an overview of the class, discussed rules and guidelines, mentioned a few of the games we expect to play, then dove right into explanation of our first game: Walk the Dogs.

Julie Teaches Walk the Dogs

This turned out to be a great choice.  Julie had the great idea of having the kids rate the games on a 4-point scale (we are using Chuck's system) and most rated it a 4 with just a few giving it a 3.  Same results on Thursday.

Playing Walk the Dogs

All but one of the groups in the 2 days were able to finish their games.  Turns out the setup time for Walk the Dogs is longer than I remembered, so on the second day I took the time to set up the doggies ahead of time.  That is part of the fun of the game, but I figured it was a reasonable tradeoff to give the kids a better chance of finishing.

Next week we will likely play Pickomino, followed by Take it Easy.  After that we'll revisit all three games and give the kids the chance to pick one of them for play during an open gaming session.

posted on Thursday, October 26, 2006 2:53:01 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)  #    Comments [4]
Thursday, October 26, 2006 7:27:35 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
Cool. I'm glad to hear the games class started well.
Mike (from the water down the back dinner on Saturday night)
Mike Shaver
Thursday, October 26, 2006 11:43:25 PM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
Congrats on following through...something I haven't managed yet (talked to enrichment coordinators, PTA folks, offered class through community college, but nothing has taken off...so far).

Sounds like it was a great success. I'm planning on waiting until my oldest is in 3rd grade before I take the plunge. At his age, even he can be very easily distracted in a large group.

Keep me posted. By the way....has 24/7 proven to be interesting/accessible enough to be a nice math practice tool for the 2nd/3rd grade set? Tumblin' Dice has been fantastic in that regard around here.

Mike
Friday, October 27, 2006 1:05:43 AM (Pacific Daylight Time, UTC-07:00)
I think 24/7 will be a good choice and plan to introduce it later in the year.
Thursday, December 14, 2006 2:20:21 PM (Pacific Standard Time, UTC-08:00)
Thanks for the information, I'm preparing to run 8 weeks of after school game programs!
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